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

In the last session the Minister talked about not bypassing local authorities. The problem is that the role of local authorities is being diminished by this legislation, though the role of elected members is not being diminished because they do not, as the Minister said, have a direct role. The local authority will no longer be the primary body responsible for taking the decision. The Minister was not present when I made this point to the Minister of State at the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy English, earlier today so I am repeating it now. The strength of a county development plan, which is not about zonings but SLOs and other policy elements, will be diminished because An Bord Pleanála has a different statutory relationship to the city and county development plans from that of the local authority planners. He is correct to say he is not bypassing councillors but he is not correct to say he is not diminishing the role of local authorities and the city and county development plans.

The Minister said there had not been a single application for an estate in Galway but the primary reason for this in the past number of years has been the lack of credit and the insolvency of many developers. The Rebuilding Ireland plan, however, seeks to achieve 25,000 units per year, every year for a set number of years and consequently there will be an increase in large applications. I do not believe the Minister has deliberately designed this to have negative consequences but, in his rush to solve the problem of lengthy planning applications, there will be a whole series of unintended consequences, which will lead to much more negative planning outcomes at a later stage. I did not hear anything from the Minister today or on Second Stage to allay my concerns.