Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Buying in surveys on a contract basis is not producing the results I would like to see. It needs monitoring and consideration. It does not necessarily need a change in the legislation but it poses questions. Local authorities want to comply with legal requirements but sometimes, in doing so, they lose sight of, or do not have the ability to deal with, the spirit of what was intended.

I refer to relevant planning authorities and the regional authority. I would like that defined. When we talk about the relevant planning authorities, about what aspect of them are we talking? Is it the planners? Does it exclude councillors? Very often one sees something very late in the day and we had experience of that in one of the early plans in regard to the Dublin region and mid-east region where one location was designated for major development. That plan was overturned at council level. Had there been an input from both planners and councillors, I think there would have been a better outcome, so I need a definition of that.

I refer to the local area plan. I have seen the same pattern of behaviour in one particular development plan in Kildare quite recently. All of the land will be zoned at LAP level rather than at county level, where one would set out the broad framework. I am almost speaking against the point I made earlier but I am all in favour of local input. However, the area committee or, in this case, the municipal authority will work on the particular plan which will go to the full council. The area committee or the municipal authority will have done all the work on it. If it deviates from the plan adopted by the council, it will run into serious difficulties. I do not know how one would remedy this. The council will want the municipal district to do the work on it but it must be consistent at council and at regional levels. There is a fault line there. I do not know how I would frame an amendment to remedy that but there could be problems at district council level.

I have seen the same behaviour in terms of wanting to rezone piles of land outside the national spatial strategy. The culture has not changed. We have to change the culture by putting some checks and balances in place which force it back to municipal level if it is not consistent with something or other. It will come down to changing behaviour. Unless we change the behaviour, we will get the same outcomes and the same nonsensical disconnect between zoning land and the consequences of zoning it in the wrong places and in the wrong quantities. Further up the line, the Department will have to deal with it because it will not be consistent with something or other. There is a fault line there and something further is required.

Section 58 refers to the objectives of providing physical, economic and social infrastructure in a manner that promotes balanced regional development. Are we talking about balanced regional development within those regions or between the regions?