Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State was quoting from the development plans as to what the obligations were for section 46(2)(b). There already is an obligation that in some cases has failed miserably in most Gaeltacht areas. Part of the frustration of Gaeltacht communities is that they will be left in limbo without the developments which would allow many of those families to stay within the Gaeltacht, while seeing developments happening where there are no linguistic protections. The amendments here are to try to ensure that at every level of planning, whether it is the local authority planning section, the councillors preparing the development plan with the management, or whether it is the coimisiún in the future, or the Rialaitheoir Pleanála, they must by law have regard to this. If it is not clearly specified, then it is put to one side. While mention is made of guidelines, we are still waiting, two and a half years later.

It is back and forth like a tennis game. The Minister of State has mentioned that it is now back with his Department whereas two weeks ago it was with the other Department, which says it is finished with it and was before Christmas. I do not know. That is neither here nor there. The key part is that these guidelines have to be published, go to public consultation, go to the EU for oversight, and that will be another two years, at least. It will be four and a half years and maybe five years from the date the Minister promised they would published. In the meantime, when the city and county managers came before the Oireachtas committee on Gaeilge, the Gaeltacht and the Irish language-speaking public, their excuse or reason for not having proper guidelines in their development plans was because they did not have guidelines. They were appealing to the Minister to produce the guidelines so that they could ensure there was a consistency in development plans in each of the counties that have Gaeltacht regions in them.

There is an urgency and that urgency has not so far been reflected by the publication of the Bill. I take the Minister of State at his word, as I have done the Minister of State, Deputy O’Donovan, and the Minister, Deputy O’Brien, that these guidelines are imminent, or the draft ones anyway, and we will see thereafter. Even in draft form, they will be a statement of intent that perhaps some of the counties could look at their development plans to ensure they reflect them. They all have development plans at the moment, so the next round will be in four years’ time, but some of them may be able to adapt as a policy on top of the development plan the guidelines as issued to ensure there is no development happening over the next short while which would undermine the Gaeltacht regions.

The amendments we are discussing deal with linguistic assessment. The Minister of State will find that, when our committee dealt with this issue of planning in the Gaeltacht and we had all the organisations and public consultations, in a way, every single organisation asked for a language test but also for language assessments as part of the requirements to ensure the Gaeltacht can survive from a planning point of view. There are a whole load of other things and that is what we are trying to get across in these amendments. They are not onerous and because they will be in the midst of a whole load of other obligations in some of these amendments we are setting down, and if they are part of it, like any obligation in planning, whether it be the developer or, at the end of the day, the person purchasing the house who ends up paying the cost, whether it is the State building social housing, a developer building private housing or, in the case of a one-off house, the person producing a certificate they have to pay for, they will become part of the cost. I do not believe there is a huge cost in this and, once it is in place, it will be a lot more fluid than people think. It is not onerous and it would become part of planning for any local authority, the regulator or the commission. It would be part of all of the other work they do in preparation for an application, the development plan or a strategic plan at State level.