2025-12-17

Before I call on the Minister to open the debate, I remind the Members that two separate motions are being debated in this slot: the motion regarding the proposed approval by Dáil Éireann of the Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) Regulations 2025 and the motion regarding the proposed approval by Dáil Éireann of the Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) (No. 2) Regulations 2025. The motions will be moved separately but debated together. They will be decided by separate questions.

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) Regulations 2025, a copy of which was laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 27th November, 2025. I welcome the opportunity to discuss the draft regulations and to set out the rationale and reasoning behind their development. The draft Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) Regulations 2025 have regard to the existing planning exemption for the change of use of vacant commercial properties to residential use. The draft regulations propose to amend the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended, by extending until 31 December 2028 the provision for change of use from commercial to residential in vacant properties under Article 10(6) of the 2001 regulations. This ensures that individuals can avail of the exemption without fear of enforcement as the current provision expires on 31 December 2025. No other elements of the exemption for change of use from vacant commercial to residential are being amended. This is a very important extension. The exemption allowing for the conversion of vacant commercial properties for residential purposes has played a really important role in our villages, towns and cities. It has been quite positive and successful. Up to the end of 2024, the exemption had resulted in 1,457 notifications from developers intending to avail of the exemptions. If fully enacted, this would result in 3,429 new homes across the country. Planning authorities are required to report on the 2025 figures early next year. This information will be published on the Department of housing website. It should be noted that the draft regulation is being prepared under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. This is due to the current provision expiry on 31 December 2025 and the relevant provisions of the Planning and Development Act 2024 not being commenced until 2026. When new exempted development regulations are made under the Act of 2024, the provisions regarding change of use from commercial to residential will be maintained. The draft Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) (No. 2) Regulations 2025 provide for really important exemptions in relation to agricultural structures. They amend Schedule 2 of the 2001 regulations by increasing the provision of animal housing under class 6 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 by 50%, from 200 sq. m to 300 sq. m, increasing the total from 300 sq. m to 450 sq. m;, and providing an exemption for a new class 6A of Part 3 of Schedule 2 comprising stand-alone slurry, effluent and soiled water storage up to 1,000 cu. m subject to a farm limit of 1,500 cu. m. These proposals are being introduced to support increased space per animal and to assist farmers in the better management of farm slurry, effluent and soiled water to assist in protecting water courses and water bodies. While capacity for storage is increased, this is to accommodate existing levels of slurry, effluent and soiled water generated on farms, allowing for better slurry management, including optimal nutrient spreading on land. It is not to allow for increased animal stock density. These changes to increase the provision of animal housing under class 6 by 50% and to provide exemptions for stand-alone slurry, effluent and soiled water are particularly important for small and medium-sized farms. I engage regularly with farmers in my own county of Wexford and across the south east. These are very practical and important measures. The increase in the exemption under class 6 will assist small to medium farms with a 300 sq. m shed housing 38 dairy cows or 100 beef cows. The average dairy herd in the country is 90 cows. It is important to note that these exemptions include limitations and conditions, including safeguards for the environment. For example, it is not possible to use these exemptions in a designated flood zone. Use of the exemptions requires that structures shall be constructed in accordance with Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine and Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage requirements and shall have regard to the need to avoid water pollution. An additional safeguard is that the use of class 6 or 6A agricultural exemptions requires the prospective developer to obtain a declaration from the relevant planning authority under section 5 of the Act of 2000 declaring the exemption is applicable prior to commencement of construction. This provides surety that the proposed locations comply with the requirements of the exemptions. The requirement for a section 5 declaration is not an added burden to farmers as farmers are already required to obtain this declaration as part of any TAMS grant application. Planning legislation provides general safeguards whereby planning exemptions are removed where works would materially affect a protected structure in accordance with section 57 of the Act of 2000 or where an environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment is required in accordance with section 4(4) of the Act of 2000. Where planning exemptions are removed, planning permission is required. Where individuals are unsure whether they can avail of any exemption in planning, they may seek a declaration from a planning authority under section 5 of the Act of 2000 as to whether the proposed works are development and if such development is or is not exempted development. Similar to the change of use regulation, the draft regulation for agricultural exemptions is being prepared under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. This is due to the exemptions being a priority of Government. The proposed exemptions will be maintained in any exempted development regulations made under the Act of 2024 The purpose of the proposed regulations is to facilitate continued use of the change of vacant commercial to residential exemption until 2028, providing certainty on its availability. The agricultural exemptions provide support to the farming community to assist them in managing slurry, effluent and soiled water though increased storage capacity. If both sets of proposed regulations are approved by positive resolution of both Houses of the Oireachtas as required under section 262(4) of the Act of 2000, it is intended to have the regulations signed into law at the earliest opportunity. Therefore, it is important that both sets of regulations are supported to provide certainty to those wishing to avail of their use into the future.

Sinn Féin will be supporting both sets of exempted development regulations. They are modest and reasonable and, in our view, they are sensible. We have no issue with them proceeding. However, I will put on the record of the Dáil my deep dissatisfaction at the manner in which the Minister has processed these regulations. As Members will know, this is the second time these regulations have been brought before the committee and the House in the space of a few short weeks. They were originally presented as a single regulation. When the Minister of State responsible came before the committee, he explained that, because the environmental assessment had not been completed, he might have to bring the regulations back in a revised form. We were then informed by way of a letter from the Minister of State that there was going to be a need for significant amendments to the agricultural exempted development regulations. In a move completely unprecedented in my decade in the Dáil, the Minister requested our committee to do something that, on foot of legal advice, we deemed not to be in line with Standing Orders and effectively illegal. He requested that we overturn a decision of the Oireachtas. The consequence of all of this is that the Minister and the Government may not meet their deadline of the end of this year for the over-the-shop exempted development regulations, which would have been an absolute disaster. The reason I am saying this here is because there is going to be a series of other exempted development regulations coming before our committee. I have no doubt that there was a level of enthusiasm, shall I say, by the Minister of State to get these through but as a consequence of that, and, ultimately, the Minister is responsible for the actions of his junior Ministers, things took place that should not have. That meant that additional committee and Oireachtas time was required, and unnecessary delay could have been caused by his Department. I appeal to the Minister to ensure nothing like this happens again with any of the other modules of exempted development regulations. If something requires environmental assessment, the Department should wait for the environmental assessment to be complete and it should give us the regulation in completed form. Will he please make sure the enthusiasm of the Minister of State, who I know, has good intentions on this issue, is curbed a bit so our committee is not asked to do anything in future, in official communications from the Minister or his juniors, that is outside of Standing Orders? I do not think anybody in this House would see any of those requests as unreasonable.

As my colleague said, we are supporting both these motions. At committee, the Minister said these exempted developments have been hugely successful. While I believe commercial units being returned as homes is a good thing, it has not reached the potential it could. We look at villages and areas that I represent like Blackpool in Cork city, one of the oldest, most historic villages and parts of Cork city. Then we have Shandon with the renowned Shandon steeple, the church and the bells. We see these communities with shops, offices and pubs boarded up and closed for decades, not years. If these exempted developments were working, we would see the return of those properties as homes. As there are still businesses in the heart of these communities, were more people brought in to live in the communities, they would safeguard the existing business and bring more people in. That is what we want to see. We want to see communities flourish. We do not want to see communities blighted by dereliction, vacancy and boarded-up properties. Therefore, turning commercial businesses into homes in places like Blackpool and Shandon Street can be a really positive thing for the community. This is not just in Cork. We have areas like this in Drogheda, Tipperary and all across Dublin. It is in every town, village and city where we need to see more homes being delivered. If we are going to hit our 2030 targets, the best homes to deliver are homes that already exist. They might be shops, offices or pubs but if they are lying empty, turning them into homes is a win for communities, for the environment and, most importantly, for families out there who are crying out for homes. This week, the Minister announced additional funding for vacant above-the-shop units to turn them into homes. We have been raising for years the issue of above-the-shop units that have been lying empty when they should have been turned into homes. That is what we want to see. This is all about delivery and the quickest, easiest way to deliver is to deliver homes and buildings that already exist. What we do not want to see - and what I certainly do not want to see - is speculators, investors and vulture funds coming in and getting the money that has now been earmarked, namely, a maximum of €140,000 per multi-unit or multi-apartment building. We want to see them delivered as affordable and cost-rental properties. If the Government is making this type of investment, speculators should not be coming in then and charging huge rents when they turn these buildings around. That may be something the Minister needs to look at as well in order that they are not just taking all the money from the State and then making huge profits. If they are going to supported by the State, they should be supporting communities and ensuring the rents they charge are reasonable. We have so much dereliction and vacancy and so many units above the shops that could really make a difference. That is why we are saying the only way for this to happen and the only way to deliver secure affordable homes for people is to use the units that already exist. It is not the only way but it is the quickest way. We support these motions. In the areas I represent, were the Minister to walk around Blackpool, Shandon Street or North Main Street, he could see these areas are crying out for investment and would be great communities for people to live in.

Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire. In the spirit of Christmas, I too have no particular issue with what is being proposed here. Broadly speaking, I support anything, within reason, that helps somebody to turn a vacant commercial property into a permanent home. I also support measures that would make it easier for people to increase the provision of animal housing and exemptions for stand-alone slurry storage, within reason. I caution this by saying we have had a number of issues in Limerick in recent times in relation to Georgian buildings, the owners of which have benefited from the exempted development guidelines. In some cases, they have been fantastic. In other cases, they have been less than fantastic. We have had issues whereby people have bastardised buildings in Limerick without facing anything really in the realm of consequences from the local authority. We really need to resource our planning departments around enforcement. Otherwise, we will end up with more poor quality housing, which is definitely not what we need. We need to conserve our architectural heritage because we have lost many shopfronts and features in our Georgian cores, particularly in Limerick, due to people having benefited from this and having not done what they were supposed to do with the building. Regarding the exemptions for animal housing and stand-alone slurry storage, I have a number of environmental concerns. Anything we do must remain strictly consistent with Ireland's obligations under EU and national environmental law, including the habitats, birds, water framework and nature restoration directives. Flexibility is important but it must also not undermine our environmental obligations. We need to make sure that what we are doing here is sustainable and that it does not increase intensification, and that slurry storage is subject to strict citing and separation standards. I am glad that an SEA and appropriate assessment of the proposal for the amended exemptions was conducted because I do not, as other speakers have outlined, think it was appropriate to have tried to do this without having done that. We cannot afford to address our housing and infrastructure needs at the expense of public safety, environmental resilience or compliance with EU and national law. This brings me on to a brief point before I conclude about the upcoming exempted development guidelines for residential development. I have a slight concern there about the potential unintended consequences of the proposed changes around, essentially, substandard sheds being rented out on the private rental market without appropriate inspections and protections. I know that is not the intention but I am worried that this could become the unintended consequence without a proper regulatory framework to protect tenants and to protect the quality of our housing stock. While the intention of this measure might not be to grow the private rental market, many of these units will invariably end up rented out without proper planning and a safety framework with tenant protections. I would like that noted. Broadly, however, I have no issue with these measures.

We will not be opposing these measures. I want to make some general points, particularly on the issue of tackling vacancy and dereliction. The grants the Minister announced this week are quite frustrating in many ways because there is no guarantee the public funding that is given out will actually go to ensuring the delivery of affordable homes. It is very frustrating because we are now seeing up to €140,000 per commercial property renovated being given to a potential investor, landlord or property owner, yet local authorities get just €11,000 per home they are trying to renovate, which in many cases are voids. There is a real problem in that we are not investing in our public housing stock and bringing affordable property back into use, while giving property investors up to €140,000 to do up a vacant property and bring it into residential use with no guarantee whatsoever that there will be affordability requirements. The other figure to note is that 28% of all vacant property grants are going to landlords to rent out properties, again with no affordability requirements, yet the Department of housing is declaring, defining and counting the giving of those vacant property grants as affordable housing. It is not affordable housing; it is going to landlords. If we really want to tackle vacancy and dereliction, local authorities need to be compulsorily purchasing properties on a significant scale. In my constituency, the Drake Inn in the heart of Finglas village has been sitting vacant for many years. Trees are growing out of the building and the city council, while it is levying fines on the owner, has not collected all the fines. How is it possible that a huge property in the heart of Finglas village is left vacant for many years to fall into ruin and damage the fabric of the community while the council just sits back and allows it? Councils should be compulsorily purchasing buildings like that but they do not have the funding and they do not have all the mechanisms to do so. When we talk about a commitment to tackling vacancy and dereliction, these issues must be addressed as well.

I wish the Ceann Comhairle and everyone here a happy Christmas.

Thank you, Deputy.

I do not object to the Minister's plans but I have a few queries, including on the agricultural side. I welcome the exemptions. There are new regulations requiring farmers to collect soiled water. The exemption that they can put down a tank to gather that soiled water is a help. It is to be hoped they will get a targeted agricultural modernisation scheme, TAMS, grant for it. That will help water quality right around the country, which is the bottom line. The one part of it I am trying to fathom is that a lot of the councils, when they are giving exemptions, look at whether there is a special area of conservation, SAC, or natural heritage area, NHA, within 15 km of a property. If they start with that craic when it comes to the exemption, there will not be many parts of the country that will get it. I ask the Minister or his Department to give a direction to councils that common sense must prevail here. A person putting down a tank is saving soiled water from going into a field or somewhere it should not go. This is a good provision but it needs to be used in a common-sense way by planners when they are looking at the exemptions. Farmers have no problem going for the exemption but in the west of Ireland, there is a huge number of designated areas, whether SACs or NHAs. If people have to go screening out and undertaking environmental impact assessments, EIAs, and appropriate assessments, when the whole basis of what they are doing is to protect against soiled water by having a tank, then it is contradicting the whole purpose of the regulation. Will the Minister work with his Department to give a direction to the councils in this regard? I welcome the provision regarding sizes. This is a good thing for the country. While the exemption is for the agricultural sector, it will help with water quality, as the Minister outlined in his speech. The other measure concerns the changeover of buildings to allow a pub or whatever to be made into a residential property. Anything that will help with housing supply is a good thing. Anything that will give a roof over somebody's head is a good thing. We should welcome that people can do that without going through eight or ten weeks of rigorous planning requirements. I would love to see the croí cónaithe scheme simplified a small bit to speed it up but it is a good grant. We need to praise things when they are good and be good enough to say something is good. Something I ask the Minister to look at is an issue that is very frustrating. In a document I sent in to the Minister's Department, I pointed out that seven years is the time within which people must have compliance with planning or if there is a non-compliance order. There are chimneys in old houses that cracked, were taken down and then slates were put up. That is a normal thing people did, using cop on as I would call it. They will not get an exemption because that is not in compliance with the house that was built 150 years ago. I ask the Minister to look at things like that. I welcome the regulations.

I welcome any changes to amend planning legislation. Something I would like the Minister to look at in the new year is listed buildings and building over listed buildings. In Limerick, we have a lot of listed buildings and many buildings which are stopping young people from living over them. I have no problem with the fire regulations but the problem is that conservation rules mean the inside of these buildings cannot be altered to allow people to live over them, as was done for decades and centuries. We want to get people back into those living areas. We also need to look at the issue of buildings within the curtilage of a listed building. A property could be 30 m or 40 m away from a listed building but because it is within the curtilage, they say work must be sensitive to that. We need to make this work for people in the 21st century. People lived in these buildings from the 1400s, 1500s, 1600s and all the way up along the line and there was no such thing as curtilage. Now the front facade and the front roof structure must be protected. If there are buildings that can be brought back into use for young people or anybody who wants to live in them, we must allow them to modernise the inside. I am talking about houses, not iconic buildings. I know of a case where a young couple was allowed to extend onto the back of their house but the front part was listed. This was a street house. They were made keep the timber. They said they could take down the timber, slab it and put the timber back up again. The costs would be massive. If we keep the front facade, the sash windows and the roofscape, we could make it look like the old street, but we should allow people to modernise the inside of houses. I am not talking about iconic buildings. They must be protected. I am talking about buildings on the streets that people can live in. We must streamline the system. I have one building at the moment that is in the curtilage of a listed building, which is in the care of the OPW. Planning permission was granted to renovate the house, which we have done. Planning permission was also granted to extend the property, but we are still waiting to do that because when the planning permission was given, they never saw that there was a building at the back of it. The building looks lovely architecturally but it is actually dangerous and it will fall into a neighbour's property. They now say they want to have this assessed. The cost of the assessment and the necessary works is €1 million and they do not have a penny to throw at it. I want to make the building safe and they are saying "No". I need the Minister's help in the new year to make sure we can get people back into towns and villages and into buildings that we can modernise while respecting the streetscape and iconic buildings. We must get people back into the upstairs of listed buildings.

First of all, I wish you, a Cheann Comhairle, all the elected Members, all the staff, everyone involved in this great House and the people who are running it all the very best for Christmas and the new year. I welcome the exemption for the change of use from vacant commercial properties to residential use. I thought that was in place, but if it is being regularised, that is all the better. I also welcome the increase in the provision of animal housing under class 6 of Part 3 of Schedule 2 by 50% from 200 sq. m to 300 sq. m and the increase in the total from 300 sq. m to 450 sq. m. Everything at home is now measured by my grandson on the basis of how many sleeps there are until Christmas Day when Santa Claus comes. How many more sleeps will we have to endure before we do something about the strict urban generated pressure clause that is discriminating against many people in rural parts of Kerry and preventing them from obtaining planning permission, or even applying for it? I have asked for this so many times. Where or what is the hold-up? I thought that it was the Government's intention to sort this out. Is it the staff in the housing Department? Where is the blockage or what is happening? All these people are looking for is permission to build a house for themselves. They do not want one penny from any one of us inside here. All they want is to get permission to build a house.

I thank the Deputy.

Then there is-----

The Deputy's time is up. Deputy McGrath is next.

I thought I had seven and a half minutes.

No, we have other Members. Deputy Healy-Rae is only one of the "other Members". He has used up two and a half minutes of his time.

Could you give me another minute, a Cheann Comhairle?

That is not the way it works.

I understood that I had seven and a half minutes.

I call Deputy Mattie McGrath, but I will give Deputy Healy-Rae 30 seconds to finalise his points, seeing as he was caught off-guard.

The same blockage is caused on the national roads. People cannot get in or out on the national roads. What is the story with the granny flats? It is nine months now since the Minister mentioned that. Is there some hold-up on that? Can it be sorted out once and for all and put before us here? We do not have any affordable housing scheme in Kerry? What is going to happen with the new idea we have for treatment plants on unserviced land?

I thank the Deputy.

Will they be exempt from being zoned? Can it be decided by a planning application? Thank you very much, a Cheann Comhairle. I am sorry, I misunderstood the times.

I too welcome many aspects of this legislation. It is very important that the Minister is making efforts in many areas, but we have a lot of strange things happening as well. Like Deputy Healy-Rae, I want to ask about the granny flats and modular units in the back garden. I will again mention Seán Meehan who is being prosecuted. He is being dragged through the courts for having his own little mobile home, which is encased in a lovely timber structure and doing no harm to anybody. There are no complaints from his neighbours along the whole road on which he lives. I also want to ask the Minister about Ballypadeen in County Tipperary. I handed him a file on it some weeks ago. They are 52 of the finest houses ever constructed in this country and they had full planning permission. For some reason, the county council took issue with them in 2005 and 2006 and the case has been in the courts ever since. Some kind of clandestine deal has now been done behind closed doors. Obviously the council did not win, and it is going to demolish these houses. They are 52 of the finest houses, constructed with mass concrete, insulation, perfect roofs, perfect walls, perfect timber ceilings and timber ceilings upstairs. Now the council is going to knock them at a cost of between €7 million and €8.5 million. It will render the site back to a brownfield site and hand it back to the owner. What is going on? Will the Minister please contact Tipperary County Council and intervene? These 52 houses should be allocated to families on the housing list.

There are some really good solid proposals here. I hope they can pass without any kerfuffle tonight. A few things were an eye-opener for me. I listened to the early part of the debate and then returned to my office, but I came back here. Some political parties and politicians are totally divorced from what is involved in farming and rural life. They expressed concern that a farmer should be given an exemption for slurry storage or for building winter housing. In the name of God, where do they hope things will go? Do they want slurry running down fields and into streams? Is that what we want? Do we want cattle to be foddered outside all year round and farmers poaching fields with tractors? I will explain the term "poaching" for some of the urban TDs if they like. It does not mean going hunting; it means destroying the ground that they need to be in good condition to grow crops or to have hay or silage growing. This is just farcical stuff. The regulations are good solid stuff. The other eye-opener was that if it is as simple as passing some of this with a motion, we must table more motions on various Wednesday nights in the springtime for granny flats and log cabins in back gardens to free up accommodation. We must ensure more of this can happen. I did not realise it is as simple as having a motion. It is very impressive that two major planning issues could be dealt with here so adeptly and swiftly tonight. Hopefully, in the springtime, more motions will be brought forward.

I wish everybody a happy Christmas. I do not have the time to elaborate on it. It is not often I stand here and thank the Minister but I thank him for the work he has done. This is a great thing for farmers. It will be backed 100%. I am delighted with it. Could the Minister please work on permissions for log cabins and modular homes to allow people to put a log cabin on a site in cases where they cannot afford a house, and also modular homes on a site or behind a house? This is a great plan. It will be a great help to people. It is not about wanting to live at home or in the backyard. It is about trying to save money in order to build a house. I spoke to a young boy yesterday. He is 31 years of age and he got a mortgage yesterday for 35 years at €1,778 per month. He will be 66 when he has the mortgage paid. That is the reality we are living in at the moment. We will back the Minister 100% in this House on anything he can do to help these young people.

I thank Deputies for their support for both of the exemption regulations I have moved this evening. The first is an exemption to allow commercial properties to be converted for residential purposes and to allow that exemption to last for another three years. We will be looking to make that a permanent change because it is absolutely crucial that we revitalise our rural communities, and urban areas as well. This is a really important element of doing that, along with all the other changes we are making, such as getting Government approval this week for over-the-shop funding, the vacant refurbishment grants we already have in place and, of course, the rural and urban regeneration funds. This is a really important exemption for rural Ireland but also for urban areas. The second exemption is really important for the farming community. It increases the exemption for animal housing by 50%, from 200 sq. m to 300 sq. m, and brings in an exemption for stand-alone slurry, effluent and soiled water to allow run-off. This is a very practical change and important measure, in particular for our small and medium farmers. I regularly deal with small and medium farmers and this will help them an awful lot. I am glad to see some of our Wexford farmers up in the Public Gallery. I wish the Ceann Comhairle and her family, the Leas-Cheann Comhairle, Deputy John McGuinness, and his family, a happy Christmas. I wish all their staff, the ushers and everybody working in the Oireachtas a happy Christmas.

It has been a positive debate. I also welcome the extended Doran family, whom I was not expecting to see in the Gallery, particularly with the Minister, Deputy Burke. They are more than welcome. I hope they are having a good evening.

I move: That Dáil Éireann approves the following Regulations in draft: Planning and Development (Exempted Development (Act of 2000)) (No. 2) Regulations 2025, a copy of which was laid in draft form before Dáil Éireann on 9th December, 2025.