Brian Stanley: Supports Bill, warns on 32sqm apartments and planning

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. By and large, Minister, the Bill is necessary. Some will say that there is a magic wand for solving the housing crisis. I believe there are a lot of magic wands that are needed. There are a number of components that are needed, and this certainly is one of them. In general, I welcome the Bill. Some of the proposed amendments I am not too sure. I think they can actually set things back. While some of them may be worthy of consideration, I certainly will be given some of the proposed ones that might cause further problems. The issue of proposing extending planning permission in the Bill, I think that is worthy, particularly in relation to judicial reviews. A judicial review can hold up a development for a long, long period of time. I think it is important that that period of time is added on to the life of the planning permission to allow for the development to take place. Retrospective applications where the development did not substantially commence as well, that can be extended by two years or over three years if it is applied for within six months of the enactment of the legislation. You might just look at that again. Is the six months a bit restrictive? Should we say it maybe within the year of the enactment of the legislation? I say that in a helpful way to try and keep a planning application alive because you and I know there is a huge shortage of builders. There is a chronic shortage of tradesmen and tradeswomen. That is something that has to be fixed. Even if you have your planning permission and you are ready to go, and even if the builder wants to get on site, they may not have the tradespeople. I think we need to be just careful around that. I think overall I want to recognise that the bill is necessary, and as I said, it is one of those steps in terms of trying to fix the problem. In relation to the Apartments Minister, I am saying this in a very, very straightforward way. Going from 37 square metres minimum down to 32 and taking away some of the natural light, that is not good. 32 square metres, if you step it out, six by five, you know, it is a very, very small space. I lived in a house, a two bedroom house that was 56 square metres, and I can tell you that was small, you know, a sitting room, eight foot four by eight foot six, as I call it, eight foot six inches, you know, very, very small house, like that will, that is very, very restrictive. I am not sure, I mean, the Housing Committee earlier on this was raised, you know, the question was raised about the sums on it, you know, that will have reduced the cost by 50 to 100,000. I have not seen any evidence that will, and I think on a proportional basis, it may be more like 10,000 that will reduce it. I would also question, you know, the justification for this, because it is supposed to be, you know, there is less apartments and there is less houses to rent, but in actual fact, between June 2023 and 2024, in that nine months period, there was almost 17,000 extra tenancies registered with the Residential Tenancy Board. And, you know, the, this business that we owe, apartments aren't happening. Well, there was actually 9,700 of them were apartments. And again, I say this in, you know, in all honesty, the question is, in my head, is where is this coming from? And is this going to make such a difference? Or is it, you know, construction federation lobbying that is happening here? You know, that they are lobbying those politicians to make these changes on the basis that we love profits, but we may not see extra apartments. And I just have huge concerns around that. I think it is important that we, it is important that we, you know, do it on the basis of evidence. And I have not seen the evidence either that this is necessary, because of the fact, in fact, quite the contrary, when you look at the number of new let's, sorry, the increased number of rental accommodation units, and the fact that the, that continues to increase. I think that the, I think that the situation regarding the private rented market is, you know, it has expanded, it has not been able to cope with what is required, because of population increase, and that is a factor we have to face up to. For now that is where things are at. But I think that we need to, everything needs to be on the basis of evidence. And I think that, you know, the evidence isn't there either on the basis of that there is no apartments coming on stream, or no new let's, or no, no houses, extra houses going on to rent. And the fact, and the other thing I have not seen the evidence on, is the fact that it is going to reduce costs by 50 to 100,000. When I saw that in the press over the weekend, you know, straight away I thought, this is, this isn't, you know, this doesn't stack up. Just Minister, I expected something in this bill around wind farm developments. And, you know, I want to say this to you, because I have said it to every minister here, I think since 2011, including your predecessor, Minister Phil Hogan, we don't have proper guidelines for wind farms. Now, I'm in favour of using wind, and I'm in favour of using solar energy. I don't believe in this thing of, you know, no wind farms, no solar energy. Yes, we should have. But you, you know, as well as I do, that planning has to be a balance. Balance is a balance of judgements. You have to weigh up the common good, you have to weigh up environmental needs, you have to weigh up electricity demands in this case, and weigh up a whole number of other factors. And that has to be, that has to be done properly. And what I would say to you about it is this, is that we have 2006 planning guidelines for wind farms. That was okay, maybe back at that time, when wind, when wind turbines were, you know, 30, 40 metres high, 100 feet or 100, maybe 120 feet. They're now hitting for 600 feet. There's wind turbines now, there's planned permissions being sought for them, where they're up to, up to nearly 200 metres in height. And, you know, they're springing up left, right and centre. And the Deputy Count Corley, we know this as well, because he's been at the meetings on the Leish Kilkenny border, the same as I have, you know, Cullohill, Ballinac Hill, Bally Raggett, Dorough, all those areas are going to be affected. There's a whole, a whole rash of wind farms being proposed right across that area. I don't profess to have all the answers on this, but I did bring forward a bill recently on this, to try and put some order on it, but also to try and prompt some action on it by government. And, you know, the measures in it, I'm not saying they're the be all and end all, and it certainly will be open to that being amended. But at the very least, you need to have guidelines in place. And if we don't have proper guidelines, you know, we may need a short-term, a short-term moratorium to say, hold on until we get the meeting in place. And I've read the answers, answers that I got back over the years to parliamentary questions in relation to where are the guidelines. And the answers were, you know, we're copy and paste over a period nearly of a decade. You know, so communities, communities need to have some say and need to have some protection. We do need, society needs electricity. We are electrifying, you know, our energy needs to try and reduce carbon emissions. You know, wind is a good source, solar is a good source, you know, but we don't have, we don't have those guidelines for wind farms. Solar minister, and I got a reply from your department the other day on it. There's no guidelines whatsoever for solar. And there's huge solar farms being planned. And again, I support solar energy and the development of property, solar farms on a proper scale. But I mean, the answer to the parliamentary question, the key bit of it says that department has begun an initial scoping process to identify the components, factors relevant to the preparation of planning guidelines for solar energy development, including appropriate environmental reporting and public consultation requirements, and a possible time frame for the set guidelines. And it goes on and down near the end, it says in the interim, so there's nothing there at the moment, right? So they said scoping to an early stage, guidelines, and at the bottom then to say, in the interim, there are currently no specific planning guidelines in place in respect of solar energy development. Now that's shocking. I mean, when, you know, where solar energy has been planned for years, and it's been rolled out over the last, particularly the last three or four years, it's starting to pop up. And here we are in a situation where we don't actually have guidelines. So again, you know, everything has to be proportionate, everything has to be balanced. And the one thing government need to do, and the department, and there's department officials here, you know, and Minister, you and your senior officials, the Secretary General of the department, you have a responsibility to bring forward guidelines on this. I'm only a single independent. I was able to bring forward a bill. I'm not saying it's perfect. But surely to God, you know, with the resources of the department, we can get straightforward guidelines in place to ensure that these developments take place in a proper manner. And this is not something I like to say, but I have to say it because it's in my mind, right? Is it the case that they're not being put in place, so we'll just allow these, all these developments to take place, and then we'll put them in place afterwards, so the horse will have bolted. It'll be too late. Is that what's happening, Keown Corley? I hope that's not what's happening. But that's what, that's the question that's been raised. And I can tell you, it's a question that's crossed my mind many times in the last 10 or 15 years here. The fact that we're still relying on those 2006 ones. So I'd ask you to, and ask the officials as well, to take that on board and, you know, come back with guidelines. We need sensible guidelines that allows for wind farm developments and solar developments at a proper scale. So look, just on the, on the bill itself, as I said, I welcome the overall trust of the bill and the intent of it. There's a few amendments being put forward, some of them already, some of them I think might cause problems. But certainly this bill, and as has been said already, this won't solve the housing crisis, and no single piece of legislation will, but it's one of the pieces that's needed. And, you know, as an Opposition TD, I welcome this. According to my voice. Thank you very much, Jeff.