Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)

He is preparing for the next Government. I think he is in about the right spot.

I wish to share time with any other Deputy. It is a ten minute slot and I intend to speak for about five minutes. I cancelled appointments elsewhere to speak in the House and I hope it is appreciated.

I agree with much of what Deputy Gogarty said. Significant corruption clearly exists in local government. The tribunal's report makes for sorry reading. The report deals with a senior official who faced the courts and paid the penalty. He was a powerful man in terms of his brief and the planning permissions he granted. His peers and his community trusted him. They invested in him the credibility and authority of the planning system. He abused and corrupted the system and reduced it to a shambles. Every day, reports reveal more people are dragged into this disgraceful story.

What is the Government doing about this situation? I found nothing new in the speech given by the Minister of State. Reference is made to the Ethics in Public Office Act, but this has been in existence for some years. Declarations of interest have also been required for some years. There is nothing which will fundamentally change the way planning is done in this country. The Minister of State claimed he is waiting for the tribunal results and its recommendations, but surely the Government is not bereft of its own recommendations on how things should change.

The most significant area of corruption exposed by the report concerns rezoning. I cannot see why the Government has not introduced legislation to separate planning applicants from councillors and officials when these decisions are being made. The planning process is supposed to be a quasi-judicial system. The county manager operates in the manner of a judge while the jury consists of the elected members. If that were in a court of law, one would not have, as happens at present, lists of applicants for rezoning going to every councillor in the country, developers knocking on doors and making phone calls or other people acting on their behalf. Such actions would not be tolerated in a court case where nobody is allowed approach the jury or make representations.

A clear distance should be evident between the elected members, officials and the applicants. The only way to ensure this, is for rezoning applications to be made to the council in writing and, if needs be, the developers can be invited to discuss their plans further. The process needs to be done in an open, transparent way in public. We are all aware that people knock on doors, make phone calls late at night and early in the morning and generally apply pressure. This should no longer be acceptable in our democracy. That is the fundamental issue the Minister of State needs to address.

Files are produced when a planning application is made. However, no phone call records are available. One does not know who rang and what it was about. The law should be changed to provide that information on any representation would be put on the record, be it from a councillor or anybody else. A summary of the information given in phone conversations with councillors and others should also be kept. This would get around the system of the nod and wink in planning matters. Everything must be transparent and a matter of public record, obviously in summary form in many cases. In that way we will achieve true transparency and openness.

I agree with Deputy Gogarty that, on retirement, whether early or not, officials of a local authority, be they county managers, engineers or planners, should not be allowed to work in that administrative area for a minimum period of one year after they have ceased working there. In the private sector they could well deal with files and issues that previously concerned them. They may even have written the reports or commissioned them. A clear distance must be evident. The excellent officials, engineers and so on who retire can work in other administrative areas if they wish but not in the one in which they earned their bread for the best part of their working lives.

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