Cian O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate that it takes time and resources to do co-ordinated area plans, priority area plans and urban plans. There is no question about that. The difficulty I have is with the change. The Bill states the principal planning authority shall "commence" the process, not that it should complete or finish the process or anything like that. It "shall commence" the preparation. It shall begin it and make a start on it within one year of making the development plan. Therefore, all they have to do under the current wording, which the Minister of State is seeking to amend, is start the process within a year. This amendment would mean that by the time of the review of the development plan, it will be five years into the lifetime of the development plan. Let us bear in mind that existing development plans have been running for six years. A five-year period is a significant period. While one would expect many of these plans to be finished for the review to take place, the only obligation is that the process will have commenced. When the elected members of the local authority do their review of the development plan - the co-ordinated area plan could very important - all they may have ascertain is whether the process has commenced and there may be nothing else to review at that point.

The five-year period within which the process must commence seems very long. I fully accept that the process will not be completed within a year but does it not make sense to provide that it must commence within a year? If the Minister of State feels that one year is too tight, he could increase the period for commencing the process to two years. In a ten-year plan, all that will be legally required within five years is to begin the process of the co-ordinated area plans. There are not many of them. It is very important for the co-operation between local authorities to get cohesive plans and developments. Without a co-ordinated area plan, there could be ad hoc development, or will there be refusals on the basis that the co-ordinated area plan has not been done? Why is a period of five years provided just to begin the process?