Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will speak to my amendments Nos. 417, 418, 422 and 427. These are the only amendments in the group I have not spoken to yet so I will try to cover the four of them now, if that is helpful.

Amendment No. 417 may have been referenced by the Minister and it refers to a development management statement including objectives for a range of things. I seek to insert a new paragraph (h), which I believe the Minister referred to. Again, the wording is not good because I do not suggest what should be done with them, as in promoting, regulating, managing or whatever it might be. I would hope the Minister might include that in it. I am talking about those important areas for ecology, wildlife and green spaces that we all know about and which may not have a designation because they may not qualify for one, but that does not mean they are not important. I have a Private Members’ Bill on that which seeks to give a little bit more power to councillors to designate these areas and not to neutralise the area in any way. It does not mean nothing can happen in them. It is just an objective to say this is an important area for biology, biodiversity, nature or whatever it might be. I accept what the Minister said about amendment No. 417, where he said he would look to potentially insert something in respect of paragraph (h).

I will discuss amendments Nos. 418 and 422 together. Amendment No. 418 is to delete paragraph (g) about preserving a specific public right of way, etc. The reason I seek to delete that is because section 49(2) reads “A development management statement may include objectives for any of the following”. Every one of us knows the difficulties there are on rights of way issues in Ireland. It is a very complex and difficult part of law, involving landownership, land rights and access over many years. We have loads of old coach roads, nun’s paths and all of those kind of things that have been there for many years. Some of them have been there for so long that nobody really knows who has access to them. What we often see is a barrier going up and we have to start trawling through records going back maybe 200 or 300 years to see what the situation is on it. I am, therefore, seeking to delete (g) because I do not want it to be a “may include objectives” section.

Amendment No. 422 proposes to insert a new wording “A development management statement shall include objectives for preserving a specific public right of way”. When I say that, I am talking about non-contentious rights of way that are proven in law and are shown to be rights of way. There is nothing contentious in obliging the local authority to have a statement on that rather than giving it the option to do so. I understand, and I know myself, from development plan meetings that what would have been seen or thought to have been rights of way have been listed, landowners then make contact, it becomes very contentious and it is then dropped from the development plan. Where we have those proven rights of way, the local authority should be obliged to include a statement on that to include those rights of way. Again, I stress the proven ones, not the contentious ones. The contentious rights of way require some action from the Department of Justice such as the setting up of a commission to assess contentious rights of way or determine what is exactly required to prove it. That is for the Department of Justice and is not relevant here today.

I will speak to amendment No. 427 as well, which relates to section 50(1)(c) which reads “A planning authority shall prepare a statement containing ... a map”, and it identifies many things which should be in maps. Maps are very helpful in developing plans. People like maps because they can read them rather than a whole load of text. What I want to do, and I have tried this at development plan meetings, is, when land is being zoned, to have some indicative line between the zoning and the places where people want to go: the retail areas, the schools, the recreational areas, etc. There should be some indicative line there to say an active travel route will be required as part of the development of this land. This is not exactly straightforward. It could be suggested that section 50(1)(c)(vii) covers that, but my amendment provides that there would be a map showing the active travel network connecting those other things that are set out in paragraph (c). Subparagraph (vii) would allow for the production of a map but it does not necessarily show how all those items listed in the other subparagraphs are being connected. Where we have development plans, maps and zonings, it should always be at the forefront for anybody who will develop those zones to consider how people will get around and get between these areas. A map would clearly show that. It would be indicative and non-binding, but it would just say we expect connectivity in these.