Problems with Ireland's planning system are down to legal issues rather than the planning system itself, a planning consultant has said.
It comes as the Central Bank Governor Gabriel Makhlouf said Ireland's planning system is "too slow".
Reform of the planning system is underway as part of the Planning and Development Bill which will see "improved consistency and alignment throughout all tiers of planning" and significant restructuring of An Bord Pleanála.
Conor Skehan told The Pat Kenny Show he believes the reforms will not help to change things.
"It's central aim is to try to stop people being able to take appeals, to try to reduce the scope to object, and it's fundamentally flawed for that reason," he said.
"It's a bill by lawyers for lawyers; it's 700 pages long and their are currently 1,500 amendments proposed for it
"It's trying to distract from the main issue here and the main issue is not the planning system, it's the legal system."
'Keep it out of the legal system'
Mr Skehan said the Irish legal system is "internationally recognised" as being slow.
"We've a really bad set of legal draftsmanship issues, our legislation is really badly written and the legal system itself has now administrative court - the most common type of court throughout Europe for fixing the issues that end up causing JRs (Judicial Reviews)," he said.
"What it's trying to do is to reduce the scope for people to object that will end up in JRs".
Mr Skehan said the vast majority of planning decisions should be kept out of the legal system.
"It should start and finish locally as much as possible, it should facilitate things like local pre-application consultation, facilitate permission by consent from locals, have more exemptions, more guidelines and be backed up by an administrative court," he said.
"We should do everything we can to keep things out of the legal system, not putting more things into it".
'Planning isn't the issue'
Mr Skehan said a lack of housing is the same the world over.
"[The] housing crisis is a universal issue all over the world," he said.
"China - the most planned country in the entire world - has, if possible, an even worse housing crisis than almost everybody else.
"Planning isn't the issue - law is the issue".
Mr Skehan said a "straightforward" rules-based system is needed "so somebody can almost predetermine whether they'll get permission or not".
"The development of lands should be a right and the exception should be where there's reasons for not doing it," he added.
The Planning and Development Bill is currently at the second stage in the Dáil.
