Mr. Frank McDonald:

In Britain, decisions on individual planning applications are made by members of the planning committee of a council, not by the officials. Decisions are made on the recommendations of planning officials who adjudicate on particular applications, after which members of the planning committee vote on whether to grant permission, development control of the function of the council as well as the zoning of land. It is not unusual for councils to be responsible for the zoning of land, and I have no problem with it. My problem is that many of those decisions were taken at the behest of developers, landowners or speculators who were in business at the time. The former chairman of An Bord Pleanála, Mr. John O'Connor, who subsequently went on to chair the Pyrites Resolution Board, drew attention to it at the end of his term of office saying:

By law, development should be led by democratic plans but during the boom period developers and vested interests had undue influence on plan making. Developers had little regard for statutory development plans in buying land and designing schemes. Banks ignored planning parameters in lending, local authorities failed to vindicate their own development plans and An Bord Pleanála has had to refuse or amend many poor quality development plans on appeal. Land values were subverted as well.

He went on to say that councillors and management succumbed to development pressures. The notion was that everywhere should be developed. Local authorities failed to send the right signals to developers. There were conflicts between management and planners within local authorities, minimal involvement in planning decisions by local authority architects and An Bord Pleanála's decisions frequently went unheeded by developers. I would be more than willing to provide a copy of this to the members.