Opposition criticises 'disturbing' powers for Housing Minister under planning law
The section of the bill would allow for any housing minister to introduce secondary legislation — or regulations — that would amend the main planning bill without requiring Oireachtas oversight. Picture: Denis Minihane
Opposition TDs have branded sweeping powers set to be granted to the Housing Minister under new planning laws as “disturbing”.
Both Sinn Féin’s Eoin Ó Broin and the Social Democrats' Cian O’Callaghan criticised a measure in the Planning and Development Bill 2023 that would allow the Housing Minister of the day to use regulatory powers to change the laws if difficulties were raised while implementing it.
Mr Ó Broin described the power as “very broad” and said he had been “taken aback” when he first saw its inclusion within the text of the bill.
The Government has defended the clause within the bill, saying the powers were provided to the Housing Minister under the previous planning act in 2000.
Junior housing minister Malcolm Noonan told the committee the powers themselves have never been used by a minister, and they are not exclusive to planning legislation.
“It is included purely as a precautionary measure,” Mr Noonan said, adding it was added to the bill following advice from the Office of the Planning Commissioner.
“Any changes made to the legislation under such regulations would be regularised through an amendment to the legislation at a later date. Given the scale and complexity of the bill, I believe it is important to have this provision to ensure that any such problems can be efficiently mediated to allow the provisions of the bill to commence as quickly as possible.”
The section of the bill would allow for any housing minister to introduce secondary legislation — or regulations — that would amend the main planning bill without requiring Oireachtas oversight.
While Mr Ó Broin accepted the powers were the same as in 2000, there remain concerns due to the “radically different context” following the completion of the Mahon Tribunal on planning corruption in 2012.
He did say he was reassured the powers had not previously been used, but this led to the question of why the provision was included at all.
“This isn’t just any legislation. This is hugely important, hugely complex and potentially hugely litigious legislation impacting all aspects of public, semi-State or private development, so I see no reason why this should be there,” Mr Ó Broin said.
He questioned why the power was required when the Government could introduce amending legislation to the Dáil.
Mr O’Callaghan also flagged similar concerns, describing the powers as “disturbing”, considering Ireland’s history with planning corruption and scandals.
“It’s incredibly sweeping and, given the bill overall is centralising more powers to the minister, it's removing safeguards, removing curtailments. To have such an absolutely sweeping provision in the bill in the context of that is really quite disturbing actually.
“Not least given that we don’t have a good history in this country in terms of planning. We do have a history of abuses that are well=documented.”
The bill itself, which is the third-largest in the history of the State, is the Government's plan to consolidate Irish planning laws.
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