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

National policy objective No. 29 in the national planning framework is to, "Support the implementation of language plans in Gaeltacht Language Planning Areas, Gaeltacht Service Towns and Irish Language Networks." That is a statutory obligation on our planning system and our local authorities. The problem is that nowhere in this Bill is it set out how this should be done. It is remarkable that the Minister of State is saying the local authorities can do this if they want. We are going to have a huge row later today or tomorrow about many areas of this Bill where the Government does not want local authorities to decide how they will do things. The whole purpose of national planning policy statements and expedited measures to retrospectively amend local authority plans is due to the position of the Minister of State's Government, as he will articulate it when we get to the relevant section, that there should be absolute consistency across all our planning authorities. I am sure the Minister of State's officials will tell him privately that the whole purpose, for example, of the rural planning guidelines that have been buried in the bowels of ministerial offices for some years is to avoid having a situation where different local authorities are applying completely different sets of rules. This is because if I am applying for a one-off rural house in one local authority area, the same set of rules should apply in another local authority area, especially if the areas are contiguous. We have spoken at great length about the need for consistency and sustainability in our rural planning guidelines. The Minister of State is right in this regard. One local authority decides one thing while another decides another, and this is done without any regard to the national planning framework or the principles of good and environmentally sustainable development or the sustainability of the language.

The Minister of State has not answered any of the specific questions in this regard. I will ask one final question in this context now. In his view, should use of the Irish language be considered a social need in a planning application in a rural Gaeltacht? I am not saying it should determine whether planning permission is awarded because there are many other considerations to be taken into account, like sustainability and access to services. However, should this aspect, the use of the Irish language, be considered a social need in a planning application? Does it merit this type of consideration? I ask this because, right now, if I was a planning officer in a local authority where there was a rural Gaeltacht, I might have my own view on this point but I would not know what the Department's position is on this issue. This is why I keep coming back to amendment No. 647 as being crucial. The Minister of State has not addressed the issue of whether language impact assessments are needed. He keeps telling us the methodology will be developed somewhere else, and that is fine. However, does the Minister of State think these language impact statements are needed, for example, with our urban co-ordinated plans and priority area plans? Are they needed in residential developments? Deputy O'Callaghan gave a very good example of why these language impact statements should apply with exempted developments, such as where an exempted development is intended to add capacity to a short-term letting facility in a Gaeltacht. This could clearly have a detrimental impact. The Minister of State has twice told us interesting things that were not related to the questions we asked.

I really want to pin him down on use of language as a social need in a Gaeltacht area, and if we should have language impact assessments as part of our plan-making process, separate to the methodology of it. I know we have spent a lot of time on this but there are a few other clusters in this same group that we did not get to.