Good morning.
With rain interminably bucketing down in much of the country for weeks (more on the way), and many householders still mopping up from floods, our lead story today sets out how councillors tried to zone almost 300 flood-prone sites for development over six years.
Climate and Science Correspondent Caroline O’Doherty writes that the planning regulator’s office had to intervene on 93 occasions to block plans, warning homes and properties were under threat of inundation if they proceeded.
Some recommendations related to multiple sites, with a total of 288 sites identified.
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In most cases, the intervention of the regulator’s office was accepted but on 30 occasions, it had to ask the minister in charge to issue a formal direction that the zoning not proceed.
These were issued to the county councils in Clare, Galway, Mayo, Donegal, Meath, Monaghan and Wicklow, as well as Galway City Council and Limerick City and County Council.
The regulator’s office said flood risk management was now a “frequent theme” in its recommendations to local authorities when county and local development plans were assessed.
The situation adds some context to comments last week by Kevin “Boxer” Moran, the Minister of State with responsibility for flood defences, who said any homes built on flood plains in future would receive no publicly funded flood defences.
The figures from planning regulator Niall Cussen show elected members in some local authorities continue to underestimate the risks of zoning for development in flood-prone areas.
A spokesperson for the regulator stressed the importance of observing flood-risk planning guidelines as extreme weather increased and said: “This issue is becoming more urgent due to increased rainfall driven by climate change.”
As O’Doherty writes, it comes at a time when the Government is struggling to keep up with flood defence programmes, with dozens of projects given priority status eight years ago still to get off the drawing board and into the planning process.
Has tourism won at the expense of housing?
The Government’s plan to crack down on short-term letting – of the kind advertised online by Airbnb and other platforms – has been back in the news.
Jack Horgan-Jones has an in-depth feature today on how the Coalition’s change of plan to bring in a ban on planning for new short-term lets in places with more than 20,000 people (the threshold was previously going to be a population of 10,000) is seen as a victory for tourism over housing.
He writes that critics are scathing.
Raising the threshold was “an obviously politically motivated capitulation to a vocal minority in Government”, says Lorcan Sirr, senior lecturer in TU Dublin and a housing policy analyst.
He saw it as “a political decision to prioritise the additional income from STLs [short-term lets] above the needs of people doing ordinary jobs with ordinary incomes who can’t find anywhere to live”.
Best Reads
On the front page today, Ciara O’Brien sets out how Ireland’s data privacy watchdog has opened an inquiry into social media company X over potential breaches linked to the “nudification” of images through its AI chatbot Grok.
The Government is preparing measures to reduce the numbers of international students after a Cabinet committee was told last week that many people are using student visas as a “back door” into employment, Political Editor Pat Leahy reports.
Graduate doctors could be encouraged to stay in Ireland through a new State-backed loan, which would be offered on the condition recipients go on to work in the Irish health service. Ellen Coyne has the story.
Sinn Féin will not attend St Patrick’s Day White House events for the second year in a row, with the Trump administration’s backing of Israel’s war in Gaza cited by Mary Lou McDonald and Michelle O’Neill as the reason for the boycott.
On the Opinion pages Fintan O’Toole has a piece headlined “Tiocfaidh ár lá is being replaced by Turn the Other Cheek” saying Sinn Féin is rightly proud of republicanism’s role in the fight against fascism in Spain and asking why it is now opposing assistance for Ukraine.
Playbook
Proceedings begin in the Dáil with Leaders’ Questions at 2pm.
Government business later in the afternoon (from 3.49pm) is statements on the outbreak of bluetongue disease in some cattle herds.
A Sinn Féin motion aimed at banning investment funds from purchasing family homes is to be debated at 6.14pm.
Minister for Defence Helen McEntee is due to take parliamentary questions at 8.14pm.
TDs have an opportunity to raise topical issues at 9.51pm.
In the Seanad there are second-stage debates on legislation on copyright and the environment starting at 4.45pm and 6pm respectively.
A private members motion on road safety will be debated in the Upper House from 7.30pm.
“AI, truth and democracy” will be examined by the Committee on Artificial Intelligence from 11am with representatives of the European Digital Rights organisation due to attend.
Officials from Water Safety Ireland and the Department of Transport will be among those quizzed on the topic of sea and cliff rescue by members of the Committee on Fisheries and Maritime Affairs from 11.20am.
The Committee on Justice will be looking at the issue of civil legal aid with representatives of the Legal Aid Board, the Bar Council of Ireland and Women’s Aid due to contribute to the meeting at 3pm.
The Committee on Housing will examine the issue of co-operative and community-led affordable housing from 3pm.
The Climate Change Advisory Council will be before the Committee on Budgetary Oversight from 3.30pm to discuss climate and environment-related tax expenditures.
The full schedule can be found here.
