John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will make it quick. Reference was made to local area plans. I have a specific question relating to Citywest. What if the local area plan is hopelessly out of date? In the Citywest area there was a local area plan dating from 2012. It never envisaged the density that has been applied for under the strategic housing development process. Now we have multiple planning applications for high-density apartments that are built to rent. One particular application related to Tallaght. An Bord Pleanála dismissed it and said there was no context. The board explained that if it granted permission, there would be development by stealth. I would like to see the board look at Citywest and put it to South Dublin County Council that the 2012 local area plan for Fortunestown is hopelessly out of date and needs to be updated quickly. Planning applications are going in for all the amenity land that was outlined in that local area plan. The amenities envisaged under the 2012 plan are hopelessly outdated too.

No reference has been made to amenities today. An Bord Pleanála may say it is not within the board's remit. If an application is lodged and it doubles, triples or quadruples what was envisaged in the local area plan, then the decision-makers must look at doubling and tripling the amenities and obliging developers to provide amenities.

The same goes for the Scholarstown area. The only reason people knew that a strategic housing development was being lodged for potentially more than 600 units, 500 of which are build to rent, in a settled mature residential area is that that pre-planning request appeared online by accident.

The main issues I have with the strategic housing development process are the lack of visibility and democratic input, aside from writing a letter. There is no forwards and backwards with officials like this or like we used to have at planning meetings in the local authority.

The deputations said the local authorities were highly involved in the process, and I take that point. The local council may be closely and intimately involved in a detailed way, but local councillors are not and they represent the democratic mandate. This all seems to the public to be invisible. There is a complete lack of transparency. Decisions are made without any apparent context. I will leave the deputations with three messages and I thank them for their forbearance.

We are talking about people. The witnesses have not mentioned people and in their commentary regarding increases in density, they did not mention amenities. People and amenities do not appear to be on their minds at all. People in mature residential areas will justifiably question what is in this for them. Many of them have lived in these areas for years and made their homes in them. I am speaking not about new urban areas, but mature residential areas in which people are used to a quality of life and a particular way of living. They will have this imposed on them without any consideration of their needs in the context of the desire to expand densities in their living space. I wish I had more time because there is a lot more I would like to say.