Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have the floor. My point is that I do not think this will be effective but we will give it a try and we will see. I remind the Minister of State that it is the committee, under the guidance of the Chair, who decide how we proceed. We want to facilitate to the Minister of State and his officials as much as possible. The problem is that the Minister of State just does not understand the proposition cutting across these amendments. I made a point yesterday when his colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, was at the committee, which I will repeat because I would like him to try to get his head around what we are proposing. Let us take the example of the cluster around exempted developments. Typically speaking, when a decision around an exempted development is made, officials look at the categories of permitted exempted developments and the impact of those physical structures on the surrounding built environment. These amendments try to broaden the way in which planning decisions are made to ensure they are not just looking at whether a physical structure is or is not an exempted development but the use of that structure and, in particular, the linguistic use. For example, after it is granted exempted development status, whether it has a positive or negative impact on the use of the language. Granting an exempted development in a Gaeltacht area where the functional use of that building would exclusively be use of the English language is a problem. Our planning system currently is blind to that. Our planning authorities have no tools to assess that and therefore cannot make decisions on it. It is simply not the case that it is not possible to do this. It is a question of whether we want our planning system to do this or not. It is an issue particularly in Gaeltachtaí but also in Líonraí. As a State, we either say we want to ensure within those geographical areas with a designated land area on which planning and development take place that every single planning and development decision has to include an assessment of its impact on the language and use of the language, whether positive or negative, or not.

It is a novel concept and a novel way of using the planning system but, ultimately, it is a political decision rather than a planning decision.

I move to amendments Nos. 603, 647 and 890. We are introducing a new series of plans, including priority area plans and urban co-ordinated plans. Again, having an option for language impact assessments as part of those plans is crucial. I live in Clondalkin village, which Deputy McAuliffe knows very well. Thanks to the hard work of the Irish language community there, it now has líonra or Irish language network status. That is a really good thing. It is good for the village and good for the Irish language because it is good for the rest of us. If we were to do a priority urban plan, for example, or an appropriate plan in that area, it would be really good if, as part of that plan, there could be an assessment as to the contents of the plan and its contribution towards strengthening the hard-won Irish language network status. The idea of having these assessments is to ask a very simple question, which is whether this plan or this category of granted development or unauthorised development will have a positive or negative impact on the growth of the language.

The next point is crucial for me. I want to explain amendment No. 647. The reference to being "treated favourably" was probably a bit too enthusiastic and could probably be taken out. It would be very helpful to this discussion if the Minister of State would publish the rural planning guidelines, which I understand he has sitting on his desk, as did his predecessors. We are all keen to see them. As we know from the national planning framework, where somebody is applying for planning permission in rural countryside areas, one of the categories that has to be taken into account is the requirement to demonstrate a social or economic need. I support that principle. The difficulty is that, because the Minister of State has not published the guidelines, social need is yet to be defined. We are making the case explicitly here that, particularly within Gaeltachtaí, the desire to speak the Irish language every day should be seen as a social need for the purposes of the consideration of a planning application. As I said, the inclusion of "treated favourably" probably was a mistake on our part.

I will demonstrate the core point here by way of an example. If I am sheep farmer and I want to apply to live on the land on which I farm, I can make a case under the existing national farming framework that I have an economic need, which is that my economic activity requires me to live in that location. If I am a schoolteacher from the city who gets a job in a Gaelscoil or bunscoil in a Gaeltacht area, I should be able to make the case that I have a social need to live in that geographical area. The need to be able to speak Irish not just in my employment but in all aspects of my life is a crucial need. This is probably one of the most fundamental issues. When we talk to the Irish language planning officers in rural Gaeltachtaí - they are not planners; their job is the development of the Gaeltachtaí in general - one of the single biggest problems they mention in sustaining and growing their population is that there is no recognition of use of the language in daily life as a social need.

On amendment No. 890, it is completely incorrect to say this proposal would be onerous and unworkable because it is an option for the planning authorities. This amendment sets out a requirement for there to be a language impact assessment on a development of two or more homes. We should keep in mind that in many cases, although not exclusively, this would be in rural countryside areas. The requirement does not have to be two or more homes; it could be three or four. That is up to the planning authority. If it is the policy of the Government, as I believe it is, that we want to see the Irish language community in these designated Gaeltacht areas, that is, the people who speak Irish every day, sustained and enabled to grow, then every single residential development must include an assessment as to whether that development will assist the Irish language to be sustained and to grow or if it will cause it to decline. A private planning application for two, three or four homes, for example, could have a detrimental impact if there is no way of ensuring a portion of those homes goes to Irish language speakers.

On that point, we already have enshrined in our planning law a requirement, under Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, for certain portions of housing developments to go people of a certain income standard. That is very sensible. We are not looking to specify what the portion should be in respect of the Irish language requirement. That should be left to the discretion of planning authorities based on their local assessment of need and their own local Irish language plans. The amendments in this cluster seek to make a profound change to the way in which we think about planning. The Minister of State keeps telling us he wants to go to plan-led development. How can we have plan-led development in Gaeltacht communities or Irish language network communities if our plans, development consents and granting of exempted developments are completely blind to whether development, development plans and other forms of plans will have a positive or negative impact on the Irish language. It makes no sense to me. The system needs to be rethought and this is the opportunity to do it.