Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

The Minister, Deputy Coveney, has outlined his rationale for this measure and as he is entitled to his view on it I feel that I am entitled to mine. This is a monumental error. It is the kind of stuff we would expect to be written by the Construction Industry Federation. This is more to do with development - or a hope of development - rather than planning. With a really robust planning system one anticipates problems. A lot of very good stuff happens but I do not disagree with the point made by Deputy O'Dowd that bad decisions have been made in the past. There has, however, been a change. For example, the regional authority of Dublin and the mid-east regional authority have met in joint session for several years. I have found that there is a substantial difference in the tone of debates around county development plans and that they are much more strategic. That change will be undermined by virtue of the fact that the work they do could now be set aside.

My second point concerns the degree of public trust. People understand the current system of a site notice going up. Now there may or may not be a site notice and if there is a site notice it is going to be a guideline. Currently, a site notice requires that a council official visits the site to make sure the notice is in place so the public will be alerted to the fact that a decision on development is to be made and then the public can then go onto the council's website. This will not happen in this case as the application will not be on the council's website; it will be hosted on An Bord Pleanála's website in the same way as a strategic infrastructure project would be. Essentially the public is going to be very badly caught out with this measure and certainly do not appear to have been considered as a central player in the process. I have seen very many planning applications because I am in an area of large scale development and County Kildare's population has quadrupled in the past four decades. We are well used to planning issues. We are well used to looking at the terms for additional information and to seeing the kind of positive engagement that can happen between the local authority, the developers and the community, where they make objections. That process is all gone with this measure. We are losing certainty in relation to a culture that has been long developing around the regional authorities and the county development plan. We are going to lose the trust of communities and the certainty about how the planning process will happen. The Minister may get a pile of planning permissions but whether houses follow will be another matter. I can point the Minister to high demand regions in my own area with land zoned for development and with planning permissions yet there has not been development. I know this is also the case in Dublin. This particular section of the Bill is really offensive and the Aarhus Convention provides for the public to be consulted on planning matters. The reality is that the public is not being consulted on planning matters in any meaningful way. This issue was raised at the regional authority of Dublin and the mid-east regional authority session recently and there was absolute uproar. They issued a joint statement, which is almost unheard of. This planning system is the same planning system that is used by all local authorities. It only provides for decisions to be logged and tracked that are decisions of that planning authority. That is normally where the public will go looking for information. That information will not be there.

There may be a site notice. There will be uncertainty about ways to allow public engagement.