Planning

Christmas deadline for controversial planning bill ‘ambitious’

Oireachtas Housing Committee chair Steven Matthews says radical overhaul of planning system needs more time to get it right

Steven Matthews, Oireachtas Housing Committee chair and Green Party TD: ‘This is too big a piece of legislation to rush it through just to meet a deadline.’ Picture: Fergal Phillips

The chairman of the Oireachtas Housing Committee has cast doubt over the housing minister’s “ambitious” timeline of passing new planning legislation into law by Christmas.

Steven Matthews, Green Party TD and chair of the housing committee, was responding to comments by Darragh O’Brien, who recently said he expected to introduce the Planning and Development Bill to the Dáil in the coming weeks and to have it passed by the Christmas break.

Matthews, who will be ...