Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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In the context of our discussion on this meeting, we considered whether we would do pre-legislative scrutiny of the planning and development (No. 2) Bill. We are obviously working on the No. 1 Bill at present. Part of the reason we were exploring this was to see what would be possible, because what is published and what will end up being in the Bill are very different, given what has been said. The witnesses are working on other elements that will come forward. I think we were interested in seeing how far we could push the boat out on that. I have been very critical of planning legislation, particularly the early legislation, which was more about development than about planning. Essentially, the constant criticism was that one sector had the ear of Government over decades to influence things from its point of view. What we needed was a rebalancing of rights so that those who bought houses could live in estates that were taken in charge in a timely way, and the bonds were done in such a way that they would not expire before they could be called in. There were deficiencies in the legislation from that point of view. The roll-over on planning permission extends to a possible 17 years before those in the estate can petition to have an estate taken in charge. This is an issue that becomes really problematic and I want to see if it is possible to make changes in this area. Clearly the witnesses are saying that it is possible to do so.

Another issue is the staff ratios in local authorities following the embargo on recruitment. It is not an equal situation, as there are wide variations around the country depending on the level of staffing in the local authority. For example, Meath County Council has half the staff that Kerry County Council has, yet Meath has a larger population. That would be a very good comparator. One cannot presume that one size fits all in terms of solutions. There must be a targeted approach, but that is a separate issue to planning.

My hope is that the following issues will be addressed. If somebody has been served with an enforcement notice and has been to the courts, it is not enough for that enforcement order to be unique to that particular local authority. Developers can move from one place to another and there must be some way of capturing enforcement orders on a national register. People should have the chance to pinpoint the developers whom we want to weed out. Even the construction sector wants to weed them out because do not do anyone any favours.

We can focus on cost of the office of the planning regulator, because in actual fact it will be a cost saving if it is done right. There is a relationship between the scattering of developments and the infrastructure that has been paid from the public purse. There have been developments in places that have been flooded in the past. Now flood assessments are required. By ensuring that developments are done correctly, we will prevent a great deal of grief. I think it is critically important from that point of view that there is a body with the specific function of making sure the spatial strategy and regional guidelines are enforced and that there is a means of enforcing them and they are taken seriously. I welcome the fact that there is some scope for members at this stage to have an input into the pre-legislative work. I suspect there are limits on what might be possible.