Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely. We cannot amend the regulations, but the Minister could revoke them and come back with something better if he thought there were grounds to do so.

I am not going to deal with the proposals for water services, as I see the logic in them. I want to deal with the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Regulations and change of use. Will the Minister of State outline the logic for stating no more than nine individual housing units can be provided for the purposes of conversion? This is to avoid Part V of the Planning and Development Act 2000. I do not like the language to avoid Part V because it is an important aspect of planning. In some of the larger towns one could create more than ten units in some of the properties to be redeveloped. That is not something we should have ruled out. We are effectively saying this measure relates to places which have fewer than ten housing units. There is potential in some larger towns to provide a percentage of social housing units in this type of development.

In respect of protected structures, the proposals shall not be permitted unless there is a section 57 declaration, which is a strange condition. This morning I spoke to three planners who told me about the process of self-regulation. Effectively, people are telling local authorities that their proposals are related to exempt development. The planning authorities neither have the resources nor the staff to check all of them and a person can claim the proposals relate to a pre-1963 development. We really need to tidy up the conditions that apply to section 57 declarations.

Furthermore, in the context of ensuring public confidence in the planning process and public engagement which is a really important part of the planning process, no elected member of a council or member of the public would be aware of a section 57 declaration. I am not sure whether the Minister of State would be fully aware of one. A section 57 declaration does not involve the erection of a site notice or the publication of a public notice and does not go up on the council's website. Who actually knows when a section 57 declaration has been sought? We are proposing changes to section 57 declarations, but there is no official public log. I logged onto a number of local authority websites today to investigate and also spoke to a number of planners about section 57 declarations, about which I have a concern. If a local authority refuses a section 57 declaration, which is its prerogative, what is being proposed? Is there an appeals mechanism? Is there a grievance procedure when somebody who makes an application for a section 57 declaration is refused? Traditionally, an application for a section 57 declaration has been referred to a heritage officer, a conservation officer and a raft of officials in a local authority and, in some cases, the Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. I flag this as an issue.

My major concern is about county development plans. I looked at the 1999 telecommunications antennae and support structures guidelines. I found two paragraphs alarming. They read:

Planning authorities should not include separation distances (i.e. from houses, protected structures, schools etc) in development plans as they prevent case-by-case analysis and can inadvertently have a major impact on the roll-out of viable and effective telecommunications networks. This will have implications for a number of planning authorities around the country who include specific distances, often up to 1 kilometre, from schools, houses etc.

It will also have implications for local communities who wish to object to proposed masts as they often could rely on policies which required such separation distances to be met in order to get the application refused.

The previous Minister also included two reminders to the planning authorities, "namely that health grounds should not be considered as part of a planning application and, all future Development Contribution Schemes must include waivers for broadband infrastructure provision as per the recent draft guidelines on development contributions."

The Minister of State has been around politics for a long time, as have I, and I can tell him of at least ten objections to masts in the area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, where I live, in respect of which members of the Minister's party, members of other parties and people not affiliated to a party mobilised huge groups of people. I recall one case in respect of an addition to a mast on top of a Garda station on Tubbermore Road in Dalkey. I can understand the reasons and the concerns. Health is a huge issue in respect of telecommunications. Guidelines with regard to schools are particularly important. Many schools have been in touch with us over the years. I have met a number of them. They mobilise. I can think of two cases in Meath about which people contacted us and expressed great concern. These are big national schools and primary schools. They want to know how they can have their voice and their say. They want to know how they can be assured that an antenna or a piece of telecommunications equipment will not have health implications for children. Local elected Members must now put up their hands and say that the Minister of State signed regulations and that they have no role or function. We just need to be careful. I would like to see tighter guidelines on the use of antennae and on additions to antennae.

I will tell the Minister of State of a situation. I know of a woman who was very ill and commissioned very interesting research. She worked for the Defence Forces. She was very much involved in engineering and telecommunications. She had independent research carried out on antennae and on the accumulative effect of the 30 or 40 antennae attached to a particular church. By the way, the church did not have planning permission. It said it was exempt. That was pursued and it was found not to be exempt. The antennae required planning permission, which was granted. The permission was appealed, An Bord Pleanála accepted the appeal and all the equipment had to be taken down. That is a very long process which is also not very satisfactory. There were serious health issues in respect of the antennae, the radiation and the accumulative effect of the combined network, which was a high-radiation network at one particular point. It would not be right of me to come in here and not to voice those concerns.

Public health and the location of these antennae near schools and hospitals has to be an issue. I am not a scientist. I do not know enough about it. I have read enough about people's concerns to feel that it warrants some attention. What am I going to suggest? There is no point in bellyaching without coming up with a proposal. My proposal may possibly not be suited to these regulations but it might be a possibility in the broader legislative framework. I am calling for a register of approved telecommunications structures and their locations, which would be supported by a relevant database. I will email this to the Minister of State. A database should be created and maintained by each planning authority in co-operation with the telecommunications operators. Such a register would provide an important input in the assessment of future telecommunications developments and would also be useful in maximising the potential for future mast sharing, possible co-location and all that is associated with it, bearing in mind the accumulative effect on which we need more research.

Furthermore, I suggest that planning consent - and I am saying planning consent, not planning permission - should include a condition stating that when the structure is no longer required it should be demolished, removed and the site reinstated by the operator - not the applicant, but the operator at its own expense. That might address the issue if it was introduced through some other form of legislation.

I will wrap up on this final issue. In the Minister of State's statement he spoke about changes to the permitted height of poles for antennae and increases in the permitted number and size of dishes on structures. He said that he will facilitate an increase in the number of antennae permitted on large structures and spoke about the deployment of smaller cells. I understand the need for the national broadband plan and its roll-out in rural parts of the country. It is critical for economic development and all that goes with it. That is all to be welcomed. I do not doubt the Minister of State's commitment but a balance must be found. It will be the public representatives, including the Minister of State as a Deputy for Meath West, who will have to face the next backlash when we see a massive set of structures put up right beside a school or hospital. I am not suggesting that this is the mechanism to deal with it.

It was suggested for many years that we should establish a national database mapping all antennae. This morning, three planning authorities have informed us that no such database is in place. Effectively, this means they do not know where antennae are located. They learn about the locations of antennae, for example, on a church steeple, when a resident telephones the local authority asking why a vehicle from company X is parked at a particular location. The company in question will then inform the local authority that an antenna has been in place in the location for years and staff were repairing or upgrading it. This means the planning authority does not know about it. All these structures must be mapped out and communities informed of their locations. While local people should not be the arbiter of decisions on locations, they should be able to express a view on this infrastructure.

My local authority has received an application to erect three of these structures. The planning authority has confirmed it is considering the application and indicated its decision will be open to appeal, which is democratic. Let us not water down the powers of citizens to engage. As I stated, these structures are fine when they are not on our doorstep but it is another story when one is erected in Navan and people bang on the Minister of State's door asking what he will do about it.