Infrastructural development for major housing projects is being hampered by too many EU rules and regulations, the Taoiseach has said.<\/p>\n
Miche\u00e1l Martin said the Government is exploring ways to roll back some so-called \u201cgold-plated\u201d EU regulations that place strict obligations on developers in relation to environmental concerns and other matters.<\/p>\n
His remarks come as public expenditure minister Jack Chambers will tell a Cabinet infrastructure committee today that the accelerating infrastructure taskforce has heard examples of \u201cgold-plating\u201d of EU rules that, when enshrined into Irish laws, are \u201cgoing beyond what is required\u201d.<\/p>\n
The taskforce is looking at alternative methods of transposing EU legislation, with changes potentially \u201cknocking years off a project\u2019s life cycle\u201d.<\/p>\n
Under gold-plating, Ireland has often adopted additional restrictions beyond what was agreed at an EU level to ensure a \u201cbest in class\u201d approach.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin, however, now says there is a need to cut \u201cred tape\u201d to speed up the delivery of housing projects.<\/p>\n
\u201cEvery modern leader is saying we have stitched ourselves up over the years,\u201d he said. “An accumulation of regulatory frameworks that are just too straitjacketing of development. There has to be a better way.”\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach acknowledged a growing frustration about planning applications being delayed for years, often held up in courts when judicial reviews are taken by private groups or individuals.<\/p>\n
He said: \u201cThere are important standards that we have to adhere to, but everything is being JR\u2019ed [judicial reviewed].\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n We have got to look at how we transpose EU directives and whether we\u2019re doing them effectively, efficiently, or maybe not to gold-plate them in the future.\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
Government sources cited regulations governing environmental impact assessments as being significantly gold-plated beyond what the EU requires.<\/p>\n
For example, Ireland requires an environmental impact assessment for a water treatment plant for a population of 10,000 or more. EU regulations call for an assessment when the plant is serving 150,000 people or more.<\/p>\n
The constraining nature of EU environmental regulations has previously been raised by the chief executive of the Land Development Agency, John Coleman, who said that the State has hamstrung itself through gold-plating.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe take the EU directive, and we say \u2018we\u2019re the best in class, we\u2019re going to do twice that\u2019. That\u2019s hamstringing us,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
One Government source warned about the impact of EU environmental regulations on housing development timelines.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are finding that there are so many environmental regulations from the EU side having a major impact on timelines for delivery of big projects,\u201d the source said, particularly highlighting the impact on housing.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said judicial reviews are being taken too often and sometimes against the \u201cgreater good\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey\u2019re weaponising the directives in a way that perhaps was never intended,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach has asked the European Commission to prepare a simplification package on regulations surrounding housing and infrastructure.<\/p>\n
\u201cDid we gold-plate them? That needs to be teased out, and in what way can we simplify regulations?\u201d said Mr Martin. \u201cToo much of our planning is in the courts.\u201d<\/p>\n
While Mr Martin has pointed to these regulations as a barrier to building, the Government has still not published its own housing plan.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin defended the delay to the plan, saying it was to allow changes to housing policy within the budget and to ensure the revised National Development Plan was in place.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, the Government is expected to fail to meet a housing development target of 41,000 new homes for 2025.<\/p>\n
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) estimated the State would fall short, with completions rising to 35,000 by the end of 2025.<\/p>\n
![\"Taoiseach](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4844847_3_articleinline_DK20251101_20TRISKEL_20028.jpg\" "\\"Taoiseach")
Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin with Triskel Arts Centre artistic director Tony Sheehan, second from left, and Triskel board members Raluca Saceanu, Paula Cogan, Rob Worrall, and Colette Kelleher, at the launch of Triskel’s three-year strategic plan. See TriskelArtsCentre.ie Picture: Darragh Kane<\/p>\n
Between 2025 and 2030, there is a commitment to deliver 303,000 new houses, an average of 50,500 per year.<\/p>\n
Mr Martin said he does not believe house prices will moderate until the country is delivering between 45,000 and 50,000 houses per year consistently.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can\u2019t just be [50,000] one year and back down again the next year. We have to be at 50,000, 50,0000, 50,000,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
However, he declined to put a timeframe on when this would happen.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be too optimistic or depress people out of it,\u201d Mr Martin said.<\/p>\n
The Taoiseach said the housing plan, now due to be published this month, would have a \u201cbig emphasis\u201d on expanding modern methods of construction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Infrastructural development for major housing projects is being hampered by too many EU rules and regulations, the Taoiseach…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[807,61,4082,60,43,6272],"class_list":["post-118563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-housing","tag-ie","tag-infrastructure","tag-ireland","tag-news","tag-planning"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}