Attorney General warns Department of Housing must respond to queries on contentious planning bill

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien sees the bill as a crucial element to underpin housing delivery

Ireland’s chief legal officer has urged the Department of Housing to start responding to his queries if it wants to get its contentious planning bill completed by the end of the summer as planned.

Attorney General Rossa Fanning wrote to the Taoiseach, the Tanaiste, and Environment Minister Eamon Ryan on June 26 stating that while having the draft planning bill completed by August 29 remains a “matter of the highest priority” for his office, that goal cannot be attained unless feedback is received from the Department of Housing regarding the Bill’s text.

Ten of the 738-page Bill’s 21 sections still have queries outstanding on them, Mr Fanning said.

They include Part 3, concerning plans, policies, and related matters for which no response had been received from the Department of Housing for nearly seven weeks at the time of the AG’s letter.

Another section of the Bill, which comprises the most significant reform of Irish planning law for generations, had been awaiting instructions for five weeks from the Department regarding the text drafted by the Office of the Parliamentary Counsel (OPC).

Addressing the three coalition party leaders, the Attorney General said it is “vital” that his office receives instructions from the Department of Housing “as soon as possible” regarding the outstanding queries in order to meet the “ambitious” timeline placed on the Bill by Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien.

Mr Fanning said that while his office continued to work “diligently” towards the delivery of the bill, and while he had informed the OPC there could be “no further slippage” given the priority placed on the legislation by Government, the Bill could not be progressed without the necessary instructions from the Department.

When queried on the progress of the Bill, a spokesperson for the Department of Housing said it “continues to work very closely” with the Attorney General’s office to finalise it.

“It is intended that the Bill will be ready by late summer and will be brought to Government in early September, and the Department is working to this timetable,” they said.

Meanwhile, in his letter, Mr Fanning noted that the section of the Bill dealing with judicial review, which has proven one of its most controversial components, still presents “significant policy and legal issues”, as evidenced by a report on the matter prepared by the Department of the Environment.

He said further that the legal costs mechanism to be included in the Bill “presents novel legal challenges”, and that finalising the text around the policy “will be essential” for the Bill as a whole.

The Bill, which was first published last January, had been criticised in some quarters for allegedly making it more difficult and costly for people to take judicial reviews of planning decisions they were not happy with.

Regarding the section of the bill dealing with compulsory purchase, where the State may take possession of property without the consent of its owner, Mr Fanning said the Department of Housing had informed him it had assembled an “expert team” to consider the “quite technical matters arising” from the legislation needed to underpin such transactions.

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien sees the bill as crucial legislation to underpin housing delivery and to help Ireland deliver housing targets and cater for the needs of a rapidly growing population.

However, a number of Green Party members raised concerns about whether it unnecessarily curtails access to justice through the courts.