Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour)
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I am substituting for Deputy Gerald Nash, who cannot be here. I welcome the Minister of State and I welcome this extremely important report, arising from the Mahon tribunal. I was a member of Dublin City Council when some of the events covered by that tribunal took place. In particular, I am thinking about the Quarryvale module. It was not a planning matter - it related to the sale of lands, but nevertheless it was of concern and was included in the tribunal's recommendations. My constituency, Dublin North-East, includes the Baldoyle, Portmarnock and Cloughran areas where substantial rezonings occurred as a result of the 1993 Dublin County Council development plan. The Mahon report made strong comments about those decisions and payments made at that time to some councillors in Baldoyle and Drumnigh. The report also commented on the Cloughran rezoning, which did not proceed although that was not for the want of trying on the part of those who wanted it to happen.

It has also been said that the property bubble of the Celtic tiger stemmed from the inappropriate zonings in Dublin in the 1990s. Today, with negative equity and unfinished estates, we are living with some of the fallout from that.

The Minister of State asked whether the independent regulator should be An Bord Pleanála or a new body. I take the point that we should not rush into establishing a new quango. We need to bear in mind that some of these planning decisions were made during the making of city and county development plans, which is an open, accountable and democratic procedure. We need to bear in mind the need for a level of democratic accountability in creating city and county development plans. I would favour having An Bord Pleanála as the regulator. In recent decades An Bord Pleanála has been demonstrated to be an independent and competent body. Its decisions have been broadly welcomed. I agreed with An Bord Pleanála overturning Dublin City Council's decision on Ballsbridge on the basis that it felt the council was not adhering to its own development plan.

Deputy Stanley talked about the brown envelopes which definitely went on and was mentioned in the Mahon tribunal. I understand that is being addressed by an anti-corruption Bill, about which the Minister for Justice and Equality recently brought a report to the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Defence and Equality. The brown envelope stuff will be covered in that. Action needs to be taken. We cannot overlook and sweep under the carpet some of the things that happened there. I take the point that it was only a small number, but that small number was able to bring about majority decisions and some people in negative equity are living with the consequences today.

I also want to talk about the important issue of planning enforcement. Priory Hall is probably the worst example of the lack of planning enforcement. If proper planning controls and enforcement had been in place, that fiasco would not have happened. Local authorities need to give greater priority and more resources for planning enforcement. For example, during the property boom Dublin City Council was supposed to inspect 15% of all developments. I do not believe it was even inspecting 5% of them. Many things were let slip and the matter needs greater priority and resources. While I accept we are not in a property boom now, nor is it likely that we will be in one, these things come in cycles and in ten or 15 years we do not want to repeat all the mistakes that were made as often tends to happen.

I welcome the report and I would tend to favour An Bord Pleanála as the independent regulator rather than setting up a new quango.