Planning and Development (Amendment) Act 2010

The way the Acts are amended seems to be organised for making it difficult to anyone trying to read the Law.

Why don’t they just insert the amendment into the Act itself? It would make things easier for everyone.

It seems that those who are making the Laws do not want to facilitate the task of those who are reading them…

I agree CK.
The issue for me was not the above act but arose in a post by RKQ on AAM highlighting the new 2010 Regulations, referred to above.

In the Regulation it referrd to a Section 42A in the Act, which of curse didn’t exist until it was inserted by the NAMA legislation.
You can read all about it in this thread here: http://www.askaboutmoney.com/showthread.php?t=145300

The kind of text you are referring to is called a Consolidated Text and you’ll see this all the time in Europe as one set of laws and Directives updates others.

We seem to have no register of currently-worded Acts and Regulations, no consolidated texts.
It makes you wonder what we are paying our parliamentary draughtspersons for when we have to wade through complex legal gobbledegook like this.
Because you can bet that if it confuses us, it’ll confuse legal eagles as well – the Law Library as far as I know is filled with hardcopy books, not legal texts and no consolidated electronic texts.
Even the online Statute Book, a place I go for many of my own references for posts, seems riddled with errors in unconsolidated texts, so what chance is there of getting an up-to-the-minute consolidated text?

This link goes back to 2006 ,so it may have been updated since then, but it gives fair warning, doesn’t it?
http://www.mhc.ie/news-+-events/legal-articles/170/

ONQ.

@onq wrote:

Do none of the departments in this Government ever produce consolidated texts for the purpose of clarity – even to aid with in house checking prior to publication?

@CK wrote:

Why don’t they just insert the amendment into the Act itself? It would make things easier for everyone.

I agree that it’s a pain in the backside, but its pretty much the way its done everywhere. There are some instances of consolidated acts being produced alongside “inserts”, but the inserts have to always be produced.

If just a revised act was produced, how you you ever find what was changed, esp in some of the bigger acts. The system of law, even some of the current acts pre-date wide spread use of computers and printers. It was previously unfeasible to re-print the whole act with every ammendment. Even re-printing the section may throw the other pages off. So it was issued as inserts to save time and money.

Also, we are concerned with only a few acts, condsider legal professions who are concerned with far more, there are more amendments than days each year, that’s another reason for inserts. When an insert comes out, you mark the relevant section in the main act.

There is probably some adversion to going digital for fear it gets compromised. So ultimately its going to be a hardcopy system for some time.

I’m not defending the system, I’m just pointing out that you appear to be looking at it in a very close minded point of view.

I will admit that outside of the Law library and IrishStatuteBook, which can continue to use the insert system, the Dept. of Environment should separatly produce a coloured PDF for reference with exclusions in red, inserts in green, for the industry.
This imo solves all problems, the current systems continues for all the legal eagles out there, but the rest of us get one document.

Hearing on the grapevine a consolidated Act will be produced ,but the AG’s office has to give it the once over- that will no doubt delay it considerably:(

I agree that for tracing revisions the inserts and exclusions [coloured or whatever] would be great.

However I was looking for a simpler solution – a consolidated text with an index listing the changes would do for me.

That way being asked a question about current law is straightforward.

I agree that being asked a question involving previous legislation is a minefield requiring intense review of the various amendments and the dates things came into force, but that’s a given.

I’m just trying to get a legible single current text for each piece of legislation – Act, Regulation, Guideline or whatever, constantly updated, available for download from whatever website, proofread by those parliamentary draughtsmen you hear about, with a date-correlated index stating the change and time it comes into force and the time it expires.

IMO this goes beyond the basic problem I outlined and into the realm where separate instruments are required to give effect to parts of Act or Regulations.

We need to establish a body of knowledge that is self-referential – I suspect there are may anomalies in the legal texts because we DON’T already have this in place.

ONQ.

@tommyt wrote:

Hearing on the grapevine a consolidated Act will be produced ,but the AG’s office has to give it the once over- that will no doubt delay it considerably:(

Excellent news, because with the latest amendment the Act has become verry difficult to read with letters suffixes for Sections and do on and so forth.

And its not just “ordinary” architects I’m saying this for – even RIAI Good Practice Notes may fall victim to this lack of clarity.

ONQ.

Appalling provision:

Costs in environmental matters.

(2) Notwithstanding anything contained in Order 99 of the
Rules of the Superior Courts and subject to subsections (3) and
(4), in proceedings to which this section applies, each party
(including any notice party) shall bear its own costs. 20

Completely at odds with the Aarhus Convention we signed 10 years ago…disgraceful.

There is an English description of the provisions of the act on the green party site:
http://www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/planning_bill_marks_new_era_for_how_we_plan_for_our_future_cuffe

@Smithfield Resi wrote:

Appalling provision:

Costs in environmental matters.

Completely at odds with the Aarhus Convention we signed 10 years ago…disgraceful.

Doesn’t it then go on to water this down?

(3) The Court may award costs against a party in proceedings
to which this section applies if the Court considers it appropriate
to do so—

(a) because the Court considers that a claim or counterclaim
by the party is frivolous or vexatious,
(b) because of the manner in which the party has conducted
the proceedings, or
(c) where the party is in contempt of the Court.

(4) Subsection (2) does not affect the Court’s entitlement to
award costs in favour of a party in a matter of exceptional public
importance and where in the special circumstances of the case
it is in the interests of justice to do so.

Unless you’re suggesting something else that it.

ONQ.

@Frank Taylor wrote:

There is an English description of the provisions of the act on the green party site:
http://www.greenparty.ie/en/news/latest_news/planning_bill_marks_new_era_for_how_we_plan_for_our_future_cuffe

Thanks Frank.

Whether they’ve interpreted it correctly or stated the intent correctly remains to be seen, but its a good starting off point from which to approach the new legislation.

ONQ.

I am sorry guys,

but the main problems with the planning systems everywhere (not only in Ireland) are the brown envelopes and the biased political influences. The proposed amendment does nothing in this direction. As soon that the economy will come back (2 or 3 decades from now probably), we will see the same problems happening again…

4) Subsection (2) does not affect the Court’s entitlement to
award costs in favour of a party in a matter of exceptional public
importance and where in the special circumstances of the case
it is in the interests of justice to do so.

I would prefer “public importance” over exceptional public importance. Who decides exceptional.

I could only hope that this is the same “exceptional” (that is not very) under which circumstances Local Authorities allow demolition of protected structures.

The idea that if you bring a case in the public interest that you are statute bound to pay your own costs seems unconstitutional to me…would they not have been better to have a provision to seek leave to bring a public interest case determined by say 3 senior judges?

The citizen should not have to pay (directly!!) to bring environmental criminals to task….

I agree and think this is a retrograde step, particularly when you think that some of the public interest cases in the coming years might centre on “ghost estates” and the quality of decision making process that led to them being built in isolation [off roundabout junctions] and in unsuitable locations [in flood plains].

While no individual case of such an estate might be considered “exceptional” it is quite clear that the planning process over the past ten years has left us in a situation where high rollers developed sites purely for tax-write off purposes where planning consultants, architects and estate agents played their part.

While it was without doubt necessary to start the Urban Regeneration process in our cities – and that was its initial purpose in the sale of Urban Renewal sites sites to private developers in the early nineties – its quite clear this process was expanded and continued long after the need for that stimulus had passed.

It is doubtful whether the boom would have reached the almost terminal levels of overdevelopment it did in the mid-noughties if this had not been fuelled by the need to develop sites artificially over-valued by being “designated” and the position worsened by the need for completion by a certain date to avail of the tax breaks.

Not only were land values artificially hiked because of the designations but permissions were built, which otherwise might have been left lie once the oversupply was recognised, because not to do so would mean losing the tax breaks and becoming relatively uncompetitive to other sites that had them.

This is the real crime, if such it was – the distortion of the market long after the initial kick-start was needed to fuel outrageous and unreasonable profits for developers who were deeply involved with the main government party.

Look at the legislation again and ask the question – who benefits?

ONQ.

Maybe the IPI and RIAI could do a service for their members and produce consolidated texts of relevant legislation? Surely it is in their best interest?

Perhaps but IMO its the job of our overpaid public service to produce such texts.

Mind you if someone wanted to pay be €300k per annum, I’d have to do it I suppose 🙂

ONQ.