Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I have two quick queries. The first relates to people who object to particular planning files, something which the witnesses look at face on and deal with. As they know, there were a couple of high-profile objections recently which meant a loss of serious investment to the State. I am curious. Given the witnesses' experiences, should there be some guidelines or a particular set of rules so that a person who wants to object to a planning file should fit a certain criteria? A person needs to meet a certain criteria if he or she looks for planning. There are many hoops to be jumped through at the best of times. We have been listening to Senator Lawlor speak about local planning. I am curious because anyone can make an objection from wherever they want, from their sitting room or wherever. I am trying to drill down. Is now the time to address this? There is no problem if someone has a case for an objection. It is brilliant if somebody wants to make an observation. Anybody can make any observation and the board can take it on board, as it were. As we are aware, people who make objections often might have different reasons for making them, and anything but a good reason lies behind quite a lot of objections. Should some guidelines or criteria exist as a prerequisite for making an objection? I would like Mr. Walsh to give me a straight answer on that, if at all possible.

Senator Lawlor picked up on something that emanates originally from the Flemish decision on one-off housing and, as we called it at the time, local needs. We got an Irish answer to a problem we were hiding behind in Ireland.

The Irish answer to it is that it is local and economic. Has that been tested? Is that a case of us suiting ourselves or dressing up the same thing in whatever way makes us feel the best? Has that been addressed in Europe or anywhere else to see whether we fit into European laws? Is it the case we are great Europeans who can do what we want and have no borders or have we given ourselves an Irish answer to what we have manipulated as an Irish problem?

Ms Kenny spoke about the rural housing guidelines. There are guidelines. Some planners are great while some are not so good. It is all down to interpretation. There is significant variance in how planners interpret the guidelines. When new guidelines are released, are planners told that something has been done for a particular reason? I know Senator Lawlor touched on this briefly with regard to training. If we just bring out guidelines, where some of these people have come from, how they have dealt with planning previously and their backgrounds affect how they will interpret the guidelines. A person could get results from two different planners with regard to a file that would be like chalk and cheese. I have seen this at first hand. I could name 20 cases where this has happened. I could even name more such cases over the course of my time in politics. I know this is not An Bord Pleanála's remit but it feeds into a lot of it. A situation can arise where if someone gets a certain planner, he or she has a good chance of getting planning permission because the planner is tuned in, knows the locality and is trying to keep people in the locality, whereas if the person gets another planner, who comes from Dublin, the planner could say "No" to one-off planning. This happens. Unfortunately, this is real life in rural Ireland. Do the witnesses think such a scenario is good enough for the people?