Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I wish to make a few comments. I refer to Deputy O'Dowd's comments about transparency. Having been involved in a local authority for 12 years, I have gone through three county development plans. I think we have moved on as a country, the planning process has moved on and there is transparency through all stages of the county development plan process. That is a positive step from where we were a number of decades ago. Having gone through three county development plans, I must put that on record.

Mr. Cussen talks about the importance of place-making, and we argue about population and its importance. Rightly or wrongly, everything in the county development plan relates to population, population targets and everything from the zoning of lands, education needs and community needs down even to the sustainability of that county through the local property tax. All this has a huge role in the county development plan. Regrettably, population, rightly or wrongly, is the key component of each county development plan. I know why there is a hands-off approach, and that will be decided at a regional level. I am slightly concerned about Wicklow because we did comply with national spatial strategy and we did not break the guidelines. We adhered to them, unlike other counties. We suffer the consequences of that today because we will not have the same proportion of population growth out of what has been allocated to the regional authorities simply because others went ahead and blew it. Both Kildare and Meath got critical rail infrastructure out of the national development plan process; Wicklow got nothing. That is just a practical example of population having a hugely significant role to play from the start right down to community infrastructure.

I will go back to rural planning because I am a little obsessed with it, coming as I do from a one-off rural house myself. I understand the pressure that is on one-off rural housing. Coming from Wicklow, I think we have a good record in how we manage one-off rural houses. This is why it goes back to the criteria of qualification as opposed to being under an urban shadow or a rural shadow in that one either qualifies or does not qualify. What I am slightly concerned about is this housing demand assessment. If I am reading Ms Walsh right, when we are deciding county plans we are deciding core strategies. We are saying, for example, 50% of our houses will be one-off rural houses. In the next six years Wicklow can have 350 one-off rural houses, but God love me if I am applicant No. 356 and I do not qualify. Regarding rural housing, one either has a need to live in the rural area or one does not, and allocating a proportion of percentage growth to that will be hard to work out. It is just a complicated process.

Furthermore, we are entering into a new era with the office of the planning regulator being brought in, something that we have not seen before. Our national planning framework, or the regional local plans, will all have to adhere to that, and it is probably not moving in the right direction. Equally, I acknowledge that the Government has accepted Fianna Fáil's amendment to bring transport under that oversight. I felt it was critical we do that. I spoke to the witnesses earlier about TII and I will speak to them after the meeting about it. It is critical TII does not become the deciding factor of what happens at national, regional and local level. It must adhere to national, regional and local policy. This is clearly still not happening at present. It thinks it is driving the bus. I will show the witnesses that correspondence later.