Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In reply to my good friend and colleague, Deputy Barry Cowen, the national spatial strategy should have been revised once its cycle came to an end, as he rightly noted. It was a disastrous strategy because very few of the designated areas actually became growth areas. Drogheda which had been omitted from it heretofore actually grew to become the biggest town in Ireland. That is how wrong the strategy was and I was concerned when Drogheda was excluded initially. Under the Freedom of Information Act, I discovered that a note on the national planning framework had gone to the Cabinet. Therefore, the Government of the day which happened to be led by Fianna Fáil decided at the time that Drogheda would be excluded and that Dundalk would be designated as the growth centre. The Government has done the opposite. It has included both towns because they are the biggest in Ireland and we need to recognise growth where it happens. That is why this plan is so important.

The plan is also important in the control of development. I agree that it should go to the regional bodies for their consideration and approval, but it is the plan and they must have due regard to it. That is a key point because in the past whole areas were rezoned by councillors who then had to de-zone them because developments never took place. One needs a structure and the freedom to make decisions within it, but one needs the proper structure. One thing I recollect from my 29 years in local government is a development plan for a village in County Louth. The council advised us that if we were producing a development plan for the village, sewerage capacity had been reached such that the village could not accommodate any more housing. A private function was held to which people were invited. It was run by the developer. Needless to say, I was not invited because I would not have been in favour of what ultimately happened. A huge area of land was rezoned which was unable to take the housing planned to be built on it. That was what was wrong with local government planning.

Another example involved something that is in the records of the Department of Housing, Planning and the Environment. The county development plan for Louth was being drawn up, but as an elected member of the council, I had not seen it. One day I received a telephone call in which I was asked to visit a certain businessman in the town. I asked him what he wanted to see me about. He took a copy of the draft development plan for County Louth out of his briefcase that included the areas to be designated and zoned for housing. I was disgusted and asked the then Minister to investigate how this had happened. I was told that because it was a draft development plan, it did not have any legal status, but that if I wished, I could go to An Garda Síochána and report the matter. There has been a lot of hookery and crookery in planning in Ireland which is appalling and disgraceful. The shame falls on politicians and those who made the decisions. We must make sure planning is transparent and above board. There has been tribunal after tribunal, but I hope and believe we now have a proper structure in place, notwithstanding the fact that there is freedom within it for local government to have plans.

Another thing that disgusted me was the fact that during the so-called boom which was a big disaster builders were writing development plans for councils which did not have the money to fund them. The comments made about councils not being funded to produce their own development plans are right. Development plans for places in County Louth were written by the developers who built the damn houses. This has to stop. We must ensure there is proper and adequate funding to obtain independent professional advice for councillors to make plans. One of the things that disgusted me the most was the fact that we had a development plan for Drogheda that designated an historic building, Drogheda grammar school, for conservation and preservation, but the building was very kindly demolished by a builder in the middle of the night over a holiday weekend. When the council would not act, I did, with another person. We went to the High Court and, through the planning process, had the building reconstructed with the same type of handmade brick with which it had originally been constructed. What really sickened me was the effort of politicians - I obtained this information from the Department on foot of a request I had made - who requested that favoured designation be granted to the owners of the site who had illegally demolished an historic building to proceed with the development of the site. All this must end, which is why I welcome the constructive engagement, not control, by the Department such that it is laid out what someone can and cannot do.

I welcome what Mr. Hogan said about looking at towns such as Drogheda - he also mentioned Athlone - which are growing outside the traditional physical boundaries of counties. If I heard him correctly, he said the adjoining local authorities would talk about what might happen. I would have concerns about this. I am talking about Drogheda, which is why I mentioned the point about local government reform. If two county councils are to decide what the largest town in Ireland will look like in the future, they have a vested interest in terms of the income they will receive in rates on properties on the periphery of the town. I see the Chairman is smiling. Perhaps he knows what I am talking about. It is hugely important where two towns are identified such as Drogheda and Athlone - there are other places also - that if changes are to be made, they be made independently of the councils which have a vested interest. Commercial development on the outskirts of Drogheda in the area of County Meath has occurred in the face of opposition from the planners in County Meath. It was forced on communities by councillors who had decided in the local development plan to designate areas which they had been advised should not be designated. Therefore, there is a range of issues to be considered. The Minister should set up a new council for the town of Drogheda to decide on what should happen.

He should not give control to decide the future of the area to two adjoining county councils for the reasons I have set out. There is a campaign in Drogheda to secure city status, which is well known and has been publicised nationally. I asked the Central Statistics Office when Drogheda, which has a population of 40,000, was projected to achieve a population of 50,000 and it stated that by 2030 approximately the population would be 52,000. It is important to plan now for the city Drogheda will become. I accept that it is not a city now, albeit the population surrounding the town exceeds that level. However, it is not in one county, which is the issue. There are extant planning permissions for the construction of approximately 7,500 homes in the area north of Drogheda. Speaking to the Minister through the officials who are present, I note that for the Department's plan to work, it must plan now for Drogheda to become a city by putting in place immediately a local government structure with the equivalent of a city manager to take charge and control of these developments.

I thank the Chairman for his indulgence.