Planning and Development (Exempted Development) (No. 4) Regulations 2023: Motion

Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (Deputy Kieran O'Donnell)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft:

Planning and Development (Exempted Development) (No. 4) Regulations 2023,

a copy of which has been laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 30th June, 2023.

The Deputies who are members of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage have already made comments. At the committee meeting a proposal was tabled by Deputy Ó Broin that there would be engagement between the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth. We were very supportive of looking further at the motion. There is urgency about this and I will continue with the motion.

Deputy Eoin Ó Broin

The Minister of State's response misses the point, which is there should not be a motion on the Order Paper today that was tabled prior to the committee meeting. The procedure is that the committee discusses regulations and on foot of that discussion a motion is then sent from the committee to the Dáil, which originally sent the committee the regulations, with regard to the motion being taken with or without debate.

The Minister of State is absolutely correct that I proposed that we have engagement in September on the implementation of this but after the meeting I went back to check the Order Paper and realised that no debate was being provided today. We wrote and asked very reasonably for 55 minutes. This is not an issue on which we are in disagreement on the core principle. All members of the committee, including members of Fianna Fail, Fine Gael, the Social Democrats and Sinn Féin, want to address three key issues. We want to have a 55-minute debate. It could happen tomorrow. The Dáil will move ahead of schedule as it does every Thursday.

Dáil Éireann debate -
Wednesday, 12 Jul 2023