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

On the substantive issues, it could be a reflection on our inability to persuade the Minister or of the fact that he is not as open to persuasion as he says and that he has his mind broadly made up at the start. Let me try to persuade him a little in response to his comments.

I absolutely accept that the buck stops with the Minister for legislation and policy on planning matters. No one here is suggesting those legislative or policy functions should be transferred outside the political process. I also agree that we need a much more transparent political decision-making process, but giving stronger powers to a regulator to ensure enforcement and compliance not only by planning authorities and the board but also by the Minister and the Department within the context of legislation and policy set by the Government and holding Ministers and the Government to account are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they can be mutually complementary.

It is not the case that people do not know who the regulators are. For example, Patrick Honohan, Philip Lane and the debates on the regulatory functions of the Central Bank have shown very clearly, albeit in a different context because the Governor of the Central Bank has a policy formulation role, that there can be very robust interactions in the public arena, of which people are publicly aware, between a regulator, a Minister and the Oireachtas. Where there are disagreements, they are aired at committees and in the chambers. While I can be very critical of the nature of the Central Bank and some of its decisions, the debate on the issue of the mortgage lending rules has shown very clearly the value of having independent regulatory functions with stronger powers than for what the Minister is providing. Again, I am not proposing that we give the planning regulator policy-making powers, but I think ensuring compliance at all levels of planning authorities - political and official - is a very important function that it should have.

In some senses the Minister described it quite well when he compared the planning regulator to being a little like the chief planner in the Department. Clearly, this is a souped-up version of it. It has a greater number of staff and more clearly defined functions, but essentially it is doing something that is already doable within the Department, albeit in a more limited form. That is precisely the difficulty. That is why it is not in compliance with the key recommendations of the Mahon tribunal and we are urging the Minister to go further. He has said, for example, that if people are breaking the law, it is a legal matter. We have a very poor history in this state of holding individuals to account within the legal, judicial and criminal processes - whether they be politicians or planners - who were involved in corrupt, inappropriate or negligent planning decisions that destroyed the lives not just of individuals but whole communities. We have a very poor track record in that respect. We set up tribunals which meet for lengthy periods of time. They make recommendations, yet here we are not taking into account the key recommendation of the Mahon tribunal that there be a stronger regulatory body with independent powers moving from the Minister and the Department to the regulator. Not only do we not prosecute people, but once again we are in a situation where we are not fully implementing the recommendations of a tribunal rightly set up by a Government to tackle some of these issues.

These are the questions the Minister needs to answer if he is to continue with the more limited form of office of the planning regulator he is outlining. What happens if he refuses to take action? Great, the regulator will have to publish an opinion. That will not necessarily go anywhere or solve the problem. While it might create a little fuss in the media for a few days and those directly implicated might be able to access that opinion, it will not solve the problem. What if the Minister or departmental officials are implicated in the problem, either directly or because of inaction? Again, I am not in any way suggesting that is the case, but where is the regulatory enforcement to tackle that issue? The Minister is right - Ministers are in the public eye, but, again, we have a long history in this country of re-electing people to office, including to very high office, who are either accused of, or have been found guilty by tribunals of, corruption, malpractice, negligence and making bad decisions.