The Bill is another piece of omnibus legislation. It tidies up the 2024 Act and is designed to fast-track the judicial review changes, clarify and firm up the ten-year development plan timelines, look at the critical infrastructure and increase the Housing Finance Agency's borrowing capacity. There is a lot contained in the Bill, on one side, but nothing on the other, to be quite honest, because it is primarily enabling legislation, at least in the areas I would like to focus on, namely the critical infrastructure measures and the development plan process. On paper it is important to facilitate the planning system where development plans, regional strategies and infrastructure delivery can be aligned. I say "can be" because while the Bill mentions and strengthens the transition to a ten-year development plan cycle, which I am agnostic about, it sets the deadlines for regional spatial and economic strategies and allows the Minister of State and his colleagues to designate key towns, which I hope will include suburban areas like Lucan, Clondalkin and a joined-up Rathcoole, Saggart and Citywest so that the corridors between them can be planned in a coherent way, unlike the fragmented housing conurbations we see around these historic villages. However, there is no guarantee that all of these tie-ins will be provided. There is reference to accelerating infrastructure delivery and the Bill streamlines the process and implements recommendations of the accelerating infrastructure task force. We have had references to the size of apartments and how the Bill allows existing apartment permissions to be updated without restarting the entire planning process. If we are putting people into boxes, and I call some of these apartments "boxes", we have to have something on the outside. What has happened is we have taken away parking spaces. We have provided insufficient playing pitches, gathering spaces, community halls and leisure facilities. There is no tie-in with public transport. I have said before that we are potentially creating what will be ghettoes in ten years' time. I say that having spoken to developers who are creating very high-quality housing in terms of the BER rating and the framework they were given. However, the framework is not sufficient, whether it relates to people being able to charge their EVs on their domestic tariff or having parking spaces because sometimes people need to be able to get from A to B in a car even if we are trying to encourage a modal shift by making it more difficult for those short journeys when people should be walking or cycling. In areas like Seven Mills, parts of Adamstown, Citywest and Kilcarbery, we do not have that infrastructure. When this legislation is passed, there will be no guarantees. We need to see a firm commitment to providing that; otherwise, we will be creating bad planning.

Sentiment score: 0.14