Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make some comments and Ms Tobin will come in then, if that is okay. I want to put on record and appreciate the support of Deputy Ó Broin, as spokesperson, and of his party for our efforts here, and from many others on the committee. I recognise that some of the recommendations do go against the grain of what many of us believe in respect of local decision-making and democracy. That is why there is not a final answer on it today for the Deputy because we want to spend the next number of weeks with our own planners. Apart from local authority elected members and their roles, local authority CEOs and so on, our own planning department has issues because the people there share the same belief as the Deputy about local decision-making when it comes to planning. We have national, local and regional plans and it is about getting that balance right.

The Deputy is asking when. I hope to be able to finalise our thinking on that in January. There are to be a number of meetings with our planning teams and there are different views in there, just as there are different views in this committee. It is a case of people being given the time to talk it through, work it out and come back with the changes in it and recommendations.

I said that we have asked the Attorney General for some legal advice on this also. My own view and sense of this is that there has to some game changer here on the whole planning end of it. I agree with the Deputy on that. I would have to see, apart from recommendations, legally what powers we would have and what can be done. I am of the belief that if we could try to work with local authorities to do this at as local a decision-making level as possible, that would be better, but that has been shown not to have worked so far. Our thinking is some blend of one more year, or something like that, to put plans in place and a certain timeframe to implement them, and if it does not happen, then a different decision-making approach has to be taken. Some committee members may have a view for or against that but we have to find some way. This has to change. There is no point in denying that.