Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will read the Minister of State one of the key recommendations of the executive summary of the Mahon tribunal report, which is directly relevant to this amendment. Recommendation 1.09 states:

As is clear from the above, at national level, both the NDP and the N[ational] S[patial] S[trategy, the forerunner to the national planning framework] play a key role in the planning system. However, neither has a statutory basis and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government ... enjoys considerable discretion in determining their scope and content. The Tribunal recommends that both of those instruments be placed on a statutory footing. [That has happened and is to be welcomed.] The relevant statutes should specify the procedure for adopting and/or reviewing those instruments and make provision for public consultation when carrying out those procedures.

That is in the Bill in front of us. However, the crucial part of the Mahon tribunal recommendation, which the Government has refused to implement, is the following, "In addition, the Oireachtas should approve the adoption of both the N[ational] D[evelopment] P[lan] and N[ational] S[patial] S[trategy]", or what we now call the national planning framework.

We had many years of planning corruption. Government commissioned a tribunal that met for a very long period, and did extensive and enormously important work to investigate allegations of corruption and malpractice in our planning system. It produced a report of 3,000 pages with a key recommendation that the national planning framework be put on a statutory footing following consultation and a vote in the Oireachtas. We had a lengthy discussion yesterday on the Chair's amendment No. 129 where the Minister outlined why they were not accepting the amendment. We are not asking the Minister of State to repeat all of that. I want to know why this Government is not implementing that key recommendation of the Mahon tribunal report for the national planning framework to be approved by a vote of the Oireachtas. The purpose of my motion is to ensure there is both a debate and, crucially, a vote of the Houses of the Oireachtas before this plan becomes statutory.