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Timetable for massive planning act published

The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage has published an implementation plan for new planning legislation. 

The 900-page Planning and Development Act 2024 was enacted last year, but its provisions will be commenced only in stages over the coming months. 

The department stresses that the existing provisions in the 2000 act will remain in place until the relevant provisions of the 2024 legislation are commenced and the corresponding provisions in the 2000 act repealed.

‘Complexity’ 

In a foreword to the 40-page implementation plan, Minister for Housing James Browne describes the work as “a task of considerable scale and complexity". 

The legislation has 26 parts and seven schedules and interacts with more than 100 other acts. 

As the department had previously signalled, part 17, which provides for the establishment of An Coimisiún Pleanála, will be the first core element of the legislation to be commenced early in the second quarter of this year. 

Regular updates 

The department has said that there will be a dedicated website for the roll-out of the act and the associated revised planning regulations. 

The aim is to commence the act in four 'blocks’, starting in the second quarter of this year. 

“Given the complexities associated with the implementation of the new legislation, and the requirement for the development of revised secondary legislation, the commencement timeline will be updated regularly, and confirmation of specific dates will be issued in advance of any provisions coming into effect,” the plan states.