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

This is for the record as well as for the benefit of the Minister, but it is worth reminding him who they are. They make applications on behalf of applicants and they make decisions. The Irish Planning Institute stated that national planning measures and policies should apply only to forward planning, under Part 3, and not to development management, which is under Part 4. It also stated that the continuance of mandatory requirements that must be complied with by planning authorities and the commission in dealing with individual planning applications hugely damages the confidence of the public in the fairness and impartiality of the planning system. According to the Irish Planning Institute, and therefore, according to the people who are probably more expert at this than any of the politicians in the room, although there are professional planners in the Department who know more about this than we do, by including in subsection (n) “the assessment of any application for development consent under Part 4”, which concerns development consents and applications to local authorities and the board for decisions on individual applications, the Minister is overstepping the mark and this runs the risk of hugely damaging the confidence of the public in the fairness and impartiality of the planning system. That is a very significant concern. Again, given this is the body that represents the people who are making these applications and deciding on them, the Minister has to listen to it.

The rest of that paragraph makes complete sense because it is all dealing with plan making: “integration of appropriate architectural urban design and quality standards into development plans, urban area plans, priority area plans, coordinated area plans, the preparation of development schemes”. That is all forward plan making.

Then there is a reference to the assessment of any individual application for development consent under Part 4. Part 4 concerns the consent process for planning authorities and the board. This matter relates to what is probably one of the most fundamental requests for a change to the Bill by the Irish Planning Institute. Given its serious concerns about the Bill, I urge the Minister to listen to what it is saying. If it is right and the Minister's advice is wrong, he is risking damaging the confidence of the public in the fairness and impartiality of the planning system at a time when we are all desperately trying to rebuild these because of issues that do not need to be rehearsed here but that have been widely covered in the media over the past while.