Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I want to thank the officials for the briefing they gave us on the Bill via Zoom a week or two ago.

Planning in this country is in a total mess. We can bring in all of the legislation we want but at the end of the day it depends on what planning authority one is dealing with because there is no consistency in the planning system. It also depends on who is the director of planning and who is over the ordinary planners. Some people could have a vendetta such that they do not want to see rural housing being built. It is absolutely crazy. In the west of Ireland there are people who are on the borders of several counties but every local authority is different. All people want to know when they are applying for planning permission is whether there are pitfalls. They want to go into a pre-planning meeting with planners who will outline and explain the pitfalls of the project being proposed and how to resolve the issues to make the project compatible with everything that is required. Some planning authorities have a system such that they do not want houses in rural areas and there is one of them in the west of Ireland. Some do not want to see businesses coming into their county and one person can dictate the whole pace in that county. I know of a county where six or eight houses were built years ago during the bang. There is sewerage, water, footpaths and everything else but now the development does not comply with the county development plan. How in the name of God does one square that circle? The county development plan has moved on. We need houses. We have to have a bit of cop on and not have a vendetta about planning. There are some authorities that have a commonsense, helpful approach and will work with applicants. That is all anyone is asking for and then they are either entitled to permission or they are not. It is one or the other.

In relation to An Bord Pleanála, it is chaos as far as I can see. I know of young couples who are trying to build a house and someone puts in an objection to An Bord Pleanála. We write a letter on their behalf and we get a response to the effect that the board will look at it when it gets to it. That is all we get. These are young couples trying to build a house. What I want to know is whether, from the Department down, a message has gone to An Bord Pleanála because if one looks at the statistics, it is clear that almost every one-off rural house is being banged if it goes into An Bord Pleanála. Is there a vendetta within the Department to get rid of one-off housing? If that is the case, we need to change a lot. We are in a housing crisis at the moment. Applicants in rural areas provide their own site. They are not looking for lights or sewerage. Thanks be to God, electricity has been brought to the whole of Ireland so they are not looking for new electricity. Thankfully, we also have roads in all parts of the country so they are not looking for new roads either. They will give a contribution towards the amenities in their local area although they do not get the benefit. There are no footpaths, they have to build their own walls around their house and do everything else needed. They also give 3 m in case the road is ever widened but there is a mentality that we should try to get rid of this. It might not be climate friendly but we must admit to one thing. The furthest house down the road will always be the furthest house and if one is building before it, does it really matter? We need to make sure that we are proactive in that.

I would worry about the planning guidelines that will come out of this Bill, particularly for the likes of one-off housing. The dogs in the street know what has being going on over the last ten or 12 years. The recent "Prime Time" programme was no shock to people. What is going on in this country is absolutely disgusting. There are people objecting in the name of the environment and different things. There are politicians objecting but thankfully, I am not one of them. I never objected to anything in my life in the line of housing because I believe that people need houses. We have a shortage of houses and we need to start limiting who can object to housing projects. Why would someone in Cork object to a project in Galway? What business is it of theirs what is built in Galway?

The main thing that opened the door to all of the objections and problems in planning is the habitats directive. This all started with that directive because it introduced environmental impact assessments, EIAs, which enables screening out. No matter what one is doing in this country, whether it is building a road, developing a port, doing some work in a field, building a house, or extending an airport, one has to go through screening, EIAs and so on. If the Government wants to build houses, it should look at what the Minister for the environment, Deputy Ryan, did when he wanted to put in jet engines in different places. There was a part of the habitats directive that the Government was able to sideline and that is what was done. There is no point in dressing it up differently. All of that was sidelined because there was an emergency in the sense that we could run out of electricity. If housing is an emergency in this country, the Government will have to do the same because no matter what happens, we are going to have serial objectors going into the courts and holding things up. This is the game that goes on. An application goes into the council and it will make an observation. Then, if the council grants permission, it goes to An Bord Pleanála. It is flapping around there for a year or more, maybe two years. If it is for a one-off house, God only knows when a reply will come back. Then people turn around and run into the courts. The courts, and we have to say this straight out, say that the applicant has to pay Johnny and Mary because they are objecting. The builders seem to have all of the money in the world. One would swear they had a cheque book the whole time.

That does not work. Sometimes, there are serious grounds, and there is the Aarhus Convention and so on, but in general, many of the objections are spurious. The habitats directive is being used, which no one can see. Forestry is another one. You can go through all the different categories, including bogs, which is what closed Bord na Móna. Every single thing you look at in the context of problems, and what is not allowed in planning, includes the habitats directive, which has to be adhered to. It was signed into law in 1997, when the current President, Michael D. Higgins, when the Minister responsible. He told everyone there would never be a bother. This is the problem with bad legislation that is not scrutinised and comes into force. We see now that it is down the road that it bites you on the ass. It came in, there was a bedding-in period and the environmentalists got a hold of it, To be quite frank about it, the latter are nearly stalling the country.

Lough Funshinagh, which is a turlough, is designated as a special area of conservation. Roscommon County Council wanted to use emergency powers but the habitats directive was used to trump it. The council was in the courts, but it was trumped by the European law. It had to do its screening out, appropriate assessment and all that. By the time everything is done, and by the time you go for planning, and to An Bord Pleanála and the courts, you will have lost thousands of the likes of those turloughs, and you will have lost people, a community and land. Is that a good system or good legislation? Will anyone do anything about it? I wanted to re-examine this one time. I was asked to do my part by the Turf Cutters and Contractors Association, TCCA. I would have been as well of if I had gone home to count cattle. I gave my tuppence worth and then went on to something else. That was it. That was the look at it. Nothing changed. The Department of the environment was doing it and the National Parks and Wildlife Service was involved. I am not blaming them for the simple reason there was a full overview of it in a heap of countries. All I did was waste a full day looking into a screen at the time of the Covid pandemic. I was wasting my time.

I will say one thing to the Minister of State - the Government needs to come clean on this. I fully support houses being built. I fully support fast-track houses being done because we cannot talk about not having houses on one hand and then block everything on the other. That does not add up. Either we are going to do it or we are not. I fully believe that the Government is trying its best to get houses, but we are tangled up in knots at the moment. This is no insult to the civil servants, but the more paperwork they do, the more we seem to get caught up in knots because there is always something to bite us. The first thing I will ask regarding the legislation is whether we will get through the habitats directive. There is a 15 km zone, but now screening out and EIAs have to be done. In most places in County Galway, Lough Corrib is right beside you. We see the Galway outer bypass. Deputy Grealish said yesterday that the project relating to the latter has been 26 years on the go. We are still no further with it. Can we realistically produce legislation which states that this, this and this are gone, and it is foolproof or bulletproof when someone brings it to court? That is the big question.

The first step as regards any planning Bill is that we should have gone back to Europe to renegotiate parts of that habitats directive. A similar measure is coming, namely, the nature restoration law. I spoke to the Government about that. It stated that it is mindful of it. The nature restoration law is more legislation that will add more paperwork to the whole thing. At the moment, county development plans, local area plans and all that craic are being done. Do we want to make sure that we have the legislation right? I am fearful. I would love to see the legislation go through on one condition. First, that civil servants living in Dublin recognise that people in rural Ireland have to live and work there and are entitled to have houses. If you come from a farm, you cannot live ten miles away and wonder did the cow calf. You have to be able to live on your farm.

There is another problem in that Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, is objecting to everything it can. Sorry, but where I was born is not my fault, if it decides to put in a road later on that brings people to Dublin, Cork, Limerick or wherever. People's fathers or mothers might be there and some of the houses they are in might be in poor repair. There was always an unwritten rule that people could come out through what we would call a shared driveway but TII now seem to be objecting to the lot. The minute TII object, it is goodbye to getting planning. The council will run a mile. The way TII is going on, it is nearly like it is going after the councils. They will not stand up to anybody in TII. There seems to be someone within constantly watching and, no matter where it is, the objection will go in. That is not the way to look after people. It has to be done sensibly. Are there sightlines? Are people coming out the same driveway that people did for the past 100 years? If they are, there should not be an objection.

I spoke to the Minister of State about this previously. I ask him to put something in legislation to help those people. It does not affect hundreds of thousands of houses, but it is about the viability of farms and small communities. We do not want to see people being pushed into areas, when it comes to being able to do their work. It is very solvable. TII will use its old trick and will go on about safety. How did daddy and mammy come out their driveway for the past 50 years and did not get the nose cut off them from driving out on the road? Now, however, for Johnny the young fella or Mary the young girl, it is all under health and safety. If a bit is added onto the back of the house or there is a granny flat, they are still going to come out. This is the stupidity of what is going in.

I would like the Minister of State to comment on what we call national framework planning. There is a section in the Bill on the national planning framework. Will any part of that affect one-off housing? Will it affect the ordinary person living in a rural area? I support getting houses built in the cities and large towns. I support that because we cannot keep talking about houses. For the past four or five years, I have heard nothing but talk of houses. Every Wednesday night, we have a motion about housing. There is something about renting or housing every week. However, we will never solve the problem until we put bricks, mortar and concrete together and build. We can talk about it all we want. Yes, we are getting some built, but the number of houses that are held up through objections and the planning process at present is ferocious. It would take an awful lot of pressure off throughout the country if they were built.

I do not need to use all my time. The one thing I will say to civil servants in Dublin is that they might be used to coming in on a DART, Luas or whatever, but they have to think that people have to live in different areas. It is not my fault where I was born; do not look down on me. I ask them to acknowledge that we keep a little piece of Ireland going, and that we pay taxes that might keep a small shop, a local national school or a local football team going. It is the word "community" which keeps that going. They should not try to decimate that by this theory in the head that everyone should be clustered together. Just think how much it costs. Irish Water is not able to cater for the number of treatment plants it currently has. It does not have enough money. It will take a good few years. I not giving out about Irish Water, but not every treatment plant in Ireland will be done in the next five or ten years. It will not be done. When the big bust of rain comes, bang, you have to release sewage. That is it. You can be as nice and as environmental as you want, but that is the reality.

You have got to let it go. So, the big bust of sewage will go into a river. That will happen, and it will go into the sea. That will happen. We think this will never happen. It is like not wanting to talk about something that is happening in reality. We are afraid to say that it happens. That is the reality. If we do not do that it will come up everyone's toilet. It is as simple as that. It will back up everywhere and come up through the manholes and the roads. It has to be done. They will not have enough capacity in all these towns that are building up because the more houses we build the more infrastructure we need. The more houses we build the more roads will be needed in to them along with infrastructure of sewerage systems. That takes time. One does not put that together overnight. One needs schools and all the different things that go into making an area.

I will say another thing about one-off housing. Just think of one thing. At the moment the Department, the Department of Education, the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications and all the different Departments have their heads wrecked that if more houses are built they will have to put in a school and this and that to facilitate development, and the next thing parents will be in uproar saying they need this and they need a school tomorrow and prefabs are no good. I ask the Minister of State to think of just one thing: they are built already in the rural areas. They are there. The infrastructure for what we need is there and we can cater for more so do not try to hammer us on the rural planning guidelines. That is the one thing I am concerned about. I do support the Minister of State in trying to get a planning Bill through providing it does not affect us in the rural areas. I do support getting more housing done and getting it done quicker, and to bypass some of the stuff that has been going on. The people who are objecting to everything cannot be listened to. It has to be driven on.

Will the Minister of State comment on the habitats directive? No matter which Department people are dealing with in this country at the moment they are caught as if in chains with what they have to go through.

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