Mick Clifford: Could the new housing bill make things worse? 

Committee members and planners have highlighted some of the flaws they believe could hinder development if new legislation is introduced

Housing minister Darragh O’Brien says the planning and development bill is ‘vital and urgent and will update planning and be once in a generation legislation’.

LAST Thursday, the committee stage of the planning and
development bill was completed. Housing minister Darragh O’Brien marked the occasion by thanking everybody involved in what was a long and arduous stage of lawmaking. The housing committee sat for eight weeks, methodically going through over 1,100 amendments in a 700-page bill that, when made law, will impact every citizen in the State in one way or another.

It is, as O’Brien noted, “vital and urgent legislation that will update planning, a once in a generation legislation”. Why, then, is it so contentious? Why are there so many people who are familiar with the proposal who believe its thrust is so misplaced, that it will accrue major cost, which will come dropping slowly over the next decade or so?