Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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On development plans, they have a long lead-in as our guests know. As a local authority member, I was involved in making development plans on several occasions and contributing to those and local area plans, so I am very familiar with the process. There is a high level of public engagement with that, which is encouraged. What is being measured there is not just zoning land but also school capacity, public transport capacity, water, wastewater and all of that. When we debated the legislation which included the strategic housing development, SHD process, I was highly critical of it because it bypassed those development plans. We were getting planning decisions on units as opposed to planning in the more complete sense where those things are central to decisions. I predicted at the time that if we took away an appeal process we would leave a vacuum to be filled. People who have engaged and who are interested in our communities will seek to challenge.

I know Ms Buckley addressed this and others have raised it with her, but I was really surprised to read her comments at the conference she attended very recently. Ms Buckley said she was intrigued that Fred Logue was invited to address the conference and that she hoped the questioning delegates subjected him to would be vigorous. She talked about him being responsible for half the judicial reviews. He does specialise in planning matters. People who go looking for someone to take a judicial review will look for someone with that specialty. I was really surprised at that. I know Ms Buckley has said that she regrets making the comments but is this where she sees the issue with An Bord Pleanála and judicial reviews, or is it something more integral to An Bord Pleanála that she sees as the problem? It feels to me like what has happened here is shooting the messenger as opposed addressing to the more fundamental issues. Prior to SHDs I do not remember any real issue with judicial reviews being taken in respect of decisions An Bord Pleanála had made.

That problem began to arise straight after the SHD process.