Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Hughes and her colleagues for coming before the joint committee. One of the main recommendations of the Mahon tribunal was the establishment of an independent planning regulator. Does the Irish Planning Institute have a view on whether this recommendation should be implemented?

Ms Hughes has stated a national planning framework is required to succeed the national spatial strategy. Based on what has emanated from the Department to date, is she hopeful work on developing such a framework is under way?

Zoning in Dublin and larger towns is a widely discussed issue, as is the need to prioritise category 1 and 2 areas. On planning in rural areas, especially the issue of village consolidation, in some counties small amounts of land close to the centre of villages have been zoned. While I consider this to be the correct approach, some planners may frown on the practice on the basis that people should be pushed into larger towns. In approximately 20 villages and ten towns there are rural transport systems in place.

It is easy for people to move about from those villages to the larger towns. It is also about trying to keep those villages sustainable, as there are people living in villages that are closed down and one cannot buy a litre of milk or a sliced pan. This means people are driving five or ten miles to buy daily necessities. Some counties zoned land close to the centre of villages to try to increase population and reduce the dependency on one-off houses beyond the edge of a village. Will the witnesses provide a view on that? A certain amount of this was done in County Laois, and some of it was okay for villages like Clonaslee, Ballyroan and Ballylinan. Some of those developments are well within the immediate vicinity of the village and have helped to make the village more sustainable in some cases.
The size of apartments is an issue that arises repeatedly. There is a view that reducing apartment size or density standards is unlikely to stimulate housing growth, so what is the view of the delegation? I am not an expert but in the few other countries I have visited, apartments seem to be much larger. Balconies in this country tend to look like a small cattle crush fastened to the side of a building. They tend to be made from galvanised iron. If they were on the first storey, they could be used as cattle crushes. They look odd and they do not provide for sustainable family living. Even if one wanted to put out a deck chair or clothes horse on a sunny day, it might not be possible. What is the view of witnesses on apartment sizes?
What do the witnesses think about quality of apartments? Building regulations may not be the domain of the delegation but those regulations allow apartments to be separated by plaster slabs. I know little about construction but I know from experience that if a person is living in an apartment where neighbours are separated by two plaster slabs, there is not much privacy. I remember canvassing in the corridor of a block of apartments and I could hear a radio from four doors away. When the person with the radio opened the door as I called, the radio was not much louder than it had been in the corridor. I have discussed this with officials from the Department but I have been told it is legal. Nevertheless, I have serious concerns. I have seen diagrams of how smoke and flames can be deflected in the event of a fire but I am not convinced such a system is as good as a wall constructed with six-inch or four-inch blocks, let alone nine-inch blocks. This relates to soundproofing, privacy and fire safety. Does the Irish Planning Institute have a view on this? There were chicken boxes built in Portlaoise which sold for up to €250,000, and people were paid to queue overnight to buy some of these obnoxious apartments. People with more money than sense paid those people to stay overnight in order that the apartments could be bought. It is indicative of how we ended up.
Does the IPI have the opinion that we should move towards better quality apartments? I do not have a problem per sewith apartments where there is a demand for them, particularly near transport hubs, urban centres and close to employment. I can see the need to work in a sensible fashion in that regard. I saw balconies in Rome which appeared to be a small garden. They seemed to be five metres long and four or five metres wide. They seemed huge but they were not attached to penthouses. The proletariat lived in such apartments. Could we move to such a model? What is the IPI's views on separating dwellings with plaster slabs? In one apartment block, one neighbour had a row with another and put a foot through the wall. I saw the hole in the wall.