Fianna Fáil plan to revive Fine Gael’s Zombie SHDs criticised by Greens

Green Party Planning & Local Government Spokesperson Oisín O’Connor has called the Housing Minister’s latest attempts to make changes to the planning system “Fianna Fáil's plan to revive Fine Gael’s Zombie SHDs by stealth - a sticking plaster that will deliver less than 1% of the homes we need”.

Highlighting flaws in new regulations announced by the Minister for Housing, Fianna Fáil’s James Browne, the Green Party Councillor for Glencullen-Sandyford said:

“This new regulation will apply to developments that got permission in 2020/2021 that are due to expire shortly. The vast majority of the homes granted permission during this period were under the controversial Strategic Housing Development (SHD) system. What we can see here is an attempt at Fianna Fáil re-introducing Fine Gael’s SHDs by stealth, by keeping alive SHDs that were given planning permission during a controversial period for An Bord Pleanála. We in the Green Party believe the new regulations the Minister is proposing should expressly exclude SHDs.”

Councillor O’Connor also questioned whether the new regulations would present a loophole for developers to give themselves more time to delay going to site on new housing, by submitting their own judicial reviews. 

“Developers also can, and do, take judicial reviews against planning decisions when they don’t like the result. Is the Minister going to allow extensions in cases like this too? We need more clarity on what the Minister is proposing here.”