We also learned that a report from property consultants Mitchell McDermott has advised that planners may need to be brought in from the UK in order to break the logjam of planning applications, where 45,000 applications are currently languishing.

These are two sides of the same coin. As the representative body for planners, the IPI has a crucial role in the planning system, while the fact that so many applications have yet to be finally processed is an indictment of that system.

The Mitchell McDermott report also gave a glimpse of another key actor in the planning sector. The report noted that when it came to 2022 strategic housing development
applications, An Bord Pleanála — to be renamed and reformed under yesterday’s bill  — has yet to decide on 59% of the submissions made to it.

This comes hard on the heels of last week’s announcement of a multibillion euro apartment redress scheme which is to be borne by the Exchequer, many of the defects and problems to be addressed clearly having slipped through the planning process.

Delays and holdups at the planning stage have an inevitable knock-on effect when it comes to house completions further along the process, producing a perfect example of the vicious circle in action.

The housing shortage at the retail end has as one of its animating principles this tangled mess at the planning end, with ‘mess’ a description of superhuman restraint.

It is one of the great cliches of Irish political life to call for root-and-branch reform of a particular closed system or process, but there could hardly be a more fitting candidate than our planning system. If one wanted justification for complete change, the last fortnight alone has provided more than enough justification for radical transformation.

Difficult though such a wholesale change might be in the short term, the current system is no longer fit for purpose.

Yesterday’s bill will hopefully be a first step towards improvement.