Conor Lenihan (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail)

I thank Deputy Pat Breen for raising this matter and I apologise for the absence of the Minister of State, Deputy Batt O'Keeffe, who is unavoidably absent. He was most anxious to respond to this Adjournment matter on which he could probably provide more enlightenment than I can. However, I thank the Deputy for giving me this opportunity to clarify that the recently published guidelines for planning authorities on sustainable rural housing are, as provided for under the Planning and Development Act 2000, specifically for planning authorities.

Local planning authorities and An Bord Pleanála are required to have regard to such guidelines in the performance of their functions under the Act in making or varying development plans and in the day-to-day consideration of planning applications. Statutory planning guidelines do not extend to public bodies other than planning authorities. The guidelines are intended to facilitate people who are part of the rural community in getting planning permission, provided their proposals meet the normal standards in matters such as the proper disposal of waste water and road safety.

On the question of road safety, the guidelines deal with the issue of development along national primary, national secondary and key regional roads. In this regard, the guidelines call for key objectives to be included in development plans, which focus on the efficient ongoing development and safe operation of such roads.

The guidelines recognise that many development plans contain objectives regarding future road proposals and, in certain circumstances, the need to protect the routes of future roads from development and recommend that this practice should continue.

In addition, as regards the assessment of proposals on existing roads, the guidelines refer to policy on development involving access to national roads. They also refer to policy on development along such roads as set out in the documents entitled Development Control Advice and Guidelines and Policy and Planning Framework for Roads, which were issued in 1982 and 1985 respectively by the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government.

That policy is given practical expression in the Department's 1982 document which stipulates that "as a general policy, the location of new means of access to the national primary roads, or residential, commercial, industrial or other development dependent on such means of access, should not be permitted except in areas where a speed limit of 30-40 mph applies". That would now be 50-65 km/h. The 1982 document points out that the same considerations also apply to national secondary roads.

The guidelines on sustainable rural housing state, therefore, that the objectives and policies of the development plan should make it clear that direct access from future development should not be permitted to national roads outside the speed limit zones for towns and villages.

Development control policy should also seek to channel traffic from new development on to existing local roads and in this way use established access points to gain entry on to national roads. The guidelines add that the development plan should make such policies clear as regards designated national routes in the planning authority's functional area.

The primary concern of the policy I have outlined is one of road safety. We are all only too well aware, for example, of the danger posed to drivers and passengers, and other road users, by cars or other vehicles stopping to make a right turn into a house entrance on a main road where the speed limit is 100 km/h.

I reiterate that the guidelines apply only to planning authorities and there is specific reference therein to development along the national primary, national secondary and regional road network, primarily for safety reasons. If other bodies choose to lodge an objection to a planning application for particular reasons, it is open to them to do so under the planning regime in place. When making a decision on a planning application, a planning authority is restricted to considering the proper planning and sustainable development of its area, having regard, inter alia, to the provisions of its development plan.

I hope that reply has provided some enlightenment for the Deputy.

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