EU regulations and “red-tape” are making it more difficult to build housing, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
The Taoiseach was speaking ahead of today’s Cabinet Infrastructure Committee, which will hear Public Expenditure Minister Jack Chambers say that Ireland has “gold-plated” many EU regulations by further than what is actually required under law.
Martin says that the Government wants to roll back on some of this, particularly in relation to environmental obligations when developing structures.
“Every modern leader is saying we have stitched ourselves up over the years,” he said.
“An accumulation of regulatory frameworks that are just too straitjacketing of development. There has to be a better way.”
The Taoiseach acknowledged a growing frustration about planning applications being delayed for years, often held up in courts when judicial reviews are taken by private groups or individuals.
“There are important standards that we have to adhere to, but everything is being JR’ed,” he said, referring to “judicial reviews”.
“We have got to look at how we transpose EU directives and whether we’re doing them effectively, efficiently, or maybe not to gold-plate them in the future.”
Martin re-iterated his previous claim that judicial reviews are being taken against the “greater good” of broader society and being “weaponised” in a way that was “never intended.”
He also said he has requested that the European Commission look at a way of simplifying regulations regarding housing and infrastructure.
“Did we gold-plate them? That needs to be teased out, and in what way can we simplify regulations?” he said.
“Too much of our planning is in the courts.”
This echoes similar remarks made to Gript by the Taoiseach last month, where he said that Ireland’s “elaborate” planning system, from An Coimisiún Pleanála to the local authority level, was the correct “arena” to hash out planning disputes – not the courts.
“I fear that if more and more judicial reviews happen, we’re going to create a certain amount of division in society. And I don’t think it’s satisfactory, I don’t think it’s right,” he added.
The Taoiseach’s latest remarks come after Transport Minister Darragh O’Brien hit out at what he described as a “small number of lawyers” who are “making a lot of money” by taking judicial reviews on behalf of clients and stalling essential infrastructure projects. He said that “a cottage industry” had been created in Ireland around this sort of conduct.
“I would put it that many [judicial reviews] themselves are just delay tactics and effectively more a cottage industry,” he said.
“A small number of lawyers are making a lot of money from it and are delaying schemes for the State.”
A very similar acknowledgement was made in May, with Housing Minister James Browne acknowledging the same phenomenon.
Browne said that judicial reviews are being “weaponised” to “prohibit very badly needed homes.”
At the time, the Fianna Fáil Minister told reporters that the Government’s planning law reforms would ensure that only those with a “legitimate interest” in a development could lodge legal objections.
“I do believe judicial reviews have been weaponised by some people, with a view to simply, if you delay a project long enough, the project will fall,” he said.
“That’s not everybody. You know, judicial reviews are a legitimate part of our legal process, and that’s why under the Planning and Development Act, what we are doing is tightening up judicial reviews to ensure that only those who have a legitimate interest in a project can bring forward their objections to it.”