When I wrote here last week about the vast range of issues that come within the remit of the Planning Board, I omitted to mention another very important category of decision-making powers that is vested in the board. These are functions in relation to compulsory purchase of land by the State or by local authorities and other State agencies.
So, in addition to retention applications for home extensions; appeals from decisions of councils refusing permission for bin shelters and bike shelters in front gardens; construction of offshore wind farms; building underground metro systems; controlling airport landings; railway orders; land-zoning disputes; road, rail and energy infrastructure; this single State agency is given a central role in relation to compulsory purchase orders (CPOs) for land required for home building. The board’s online site details its CPO roles under the Housing Act, the Derelict Sites Act, the Water Supplies Act, the Gas Act, the Air Navigation and Transport Act and the Harbours Act among others.
We read about the Land Development Agency being tasked with mobilising State-owned land assets to increase available home building activity. But as long as that campaign is confined to publicly-owned land, the elephant in the room is not addressed. Why is privately-owned development land so difficult to CPO? Why does the planning board have to confirm CPOs under so many statutory headings?
If the so-called housing tsar is to be confined to kicking down the doors of reluctant land-hoarding public bodies, it is not clear what exactly the Government is planning to do to increase the supply of other land in private hands for home building. I remain very pessimistic about the prospects for the planned Housing Activation Office being able to solve our housing problems in the short or medium term. It might not be too unfair to describe the wholly independent statutory Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) as almost the opposite of a planning activation office.
Ministers need to stop pointing out obstacles to delivery - and start tackling them
There’s a simple reason why building projects - from the petty to the transformative - take so long in Ireland
Britain does not dictate Irish law. Or Irish feminism
There is no ‘right’ to subvert women’s freedom to have their own events and spaces
A big question is why we are de-zoning development land. Why do development plans specify the sequencing of development within zoned land, when there is no practical means of using CPO powers on privately-owned urban land? In the absence of real statutory powers for the housing tsar and the housing activation office, on which side of the housing supply issue is the preponderance of our regulatory system located?
I cannot be alone in feeling that the ambitious targets announced for cutting carbon emissions by building onshore and offshore wind farms – as well as for afforestation, electric vehicle use, hydrogen fuel generation, data centres, phasing out gas usage, ending gas exploration, State-owned LNG terminals – are not merely slipping, but badly on the slide.
Who is building offshore wind power infrastructure now, and where is it being built? In the Atlantic? What has happened to the breathless rhetoric of Ireland becoming the Saudi Arabia of offshore wind energy? Where are the planned port facilities to service such operations and construction? How many schemes have been approved by MARA for licensing? And how many such projects are the subject of current applications to the planning board (which has recruited specialists to deal with these schemes)? Are we on target to build out our electricity power grid?
We appear to be sleepwalking into massive European Union fines for missing our 2030 carbon emissions targets. Does the fact that our population is increasing rapidly have any bearing on those targets? What has happened to our carbon budget legislation?
The Government is heading for its first summer break. The flow of legislation is still at a trickle. It needs to show that it is driving change on many fronts. Voters will need to be convinced that we are on the way to achieving our home-building targets. At the moment, published statistics suggest otherwise, and voters seem to have simply turned off. Constant headlines about house-building schemes being struck down by councils, the planning board and the courts are chipping away at public confidence.
There is no great ideological divide in the Government. There is no excuse based on political disagreement or policy strategy to hold back all the projects we so badly need. And yet many people are wondering whether there is even a remote chance of our policy goals being realised. If housing and climate targets and the infrastructure of transport, energy, health, education and prisons are not delivered, there will be a heavy price to pay at polling stations.
Every Minister and Minister of State must understand one thing: collectively, they are responsible for delivery. The obstacles posed by regulatory bodies, laws and practices are their responsibility too. Is our planning system – so recently codified – fit for purpose? If we are not going to hit targets, please tell us – and please tell us why. And do something about it.
There is no excuse for complacency. With Donald Trump, Nigel Farage, Ukraine, Gaza and tariff wars on the political horizon, the Government must get on its bike.
