I thank Deputy Clendennen. I welcome and support the Bill, which implements the reforms agreed by the Dáil in 2024 and will accelerate the supply of housing. The housing crisis is the defining challenge facing this country and we all see the impact in our weekly clinics. The Planning and Development Act 2024 was the largest reform of our planning legislation in a generation. I want to focus on three elements of the Bill. The first is the judicial review. The Bill applies the new procedural rules for planning judicial review, introduced in the 2024 Act, to remaining decisions made under the 2000 Act. That means the removal of the separate leave stage. It also means a case can be remitted to the point where a procedural breach occurred, rather than an entire permission being quashed. It means an end to further appeals to the Court of Appeal in those cases. Each of these measures cuts time and unnecessary legal costs for all parties concerned. It is worth being clear about the impact. This is not about shutting anyone out of the courts. Judicial review remains available to any person with a genuine case. What these changes remove is duplication, cost and delay. Of course, delay serves nobody. On the second point, strategic planning, the Bill sets a 90-week deadline for the review of the three regional, spatial and economic strategies so that they will be completed by the end of 2027. It allows current development plans to remain in force on a transitional basis until a fixed date no later than the end of 2030. That gives local authorities the space to complete their reviews properly and to introduce a ten-year development plan on time. Ten-year plans give certainty for communities, for councils and for those delivering homes and the infrastructure that serves them. Third, on infrastructure, the Bill delivers on actions assigned to the Department under the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce Report and Action Plan 2025. Homes need water, they need power and transport, and the Bill streamlines the consenting process for the critical projects that make housing possible. It also allows existing apartment permissions to be modified in line with updated apartment design standards. These measures can unlock sites that are permitted but stalled. Permitted but stalled is the worst of all worlds, and we have too much of that. I want to address public participation directly, because it matters. Streamlining and participation are not opposites. Under the Bill, public consultation on development plans remains. Submissions on planning applications remain, as do appeals. What changes is the speed and the certainty of the process, not the right of people to have their say. In my constituency of Dún Laoghaire, residents engage seriously and constructively with the planning system. I will always defend their right to do so. A faster system must also be a fair system. Every month that we take out of the planning process is a key turned in a front door a month sooner. That is what this Bill is essentially about. I ask the Minister to publish a clear commencement timetable for the remaining provisions and to ensure that local authorities, such as Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, are properly resourced for the transition to planning under the new Act. Housing is the priority and this Bill helps us deliver it. I support the Bill and look forward to its implementation.

Sentiment score: 0.04