Jerry Cowley (Mayo, Independent)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this very important Bill. I agree with having lifetime adaptable housing to which we should all aspire. When we are born, we do not know what might happen in the future and how our lives might change. God forbid that we might become disabled, but it can happen. Our housing should be as people friendly as possible. The system should serve the people and not the other way around. Too often that emphasis is lost and the Bill may help in that regard.

Part M was included to make a difference and allow premises to be accessible. However, there are growth limitations and I understand the Minister is reviewing part M, which is to be welcomed. The difficulty is that while a house may be accessible, getting to that house may not be possible, which defeats the purpose of part M. It may be that the extent of it is to ensure that toilets are accessible to disabled people. While major improvements are required in part M, it represents a step towards lifetime adaptable housing which should be our goal.

While we do not know whether we might become disabled, we know we will get older. We hope we will have long lives, which often means increasing disability and thereby not being able to use a house that is not disabled-friendly. We should aim towards equality for everyone rather than catering for a disability. We should aim to ensure that everyone, right across the board, has the same ability to access a house or building. We know well that surveys conducted show disgraceful access to premises, particularly public buildings. There is 4% access to housing developments under construction, a disgraceful figure that must be improved.

One must know who one is dealing with if it is a professional person. If someone is an architect, one should be able to trust him or her to do the job. That is very important, no matter what walk of life one is in. In building especially, many people purport to be architects, and people must know exactly who they are dealing with.

Energy conservation is logical and should be backed to a greater degree by Government grants to ensure access to the best materials, thereby cutting people's energy use and bringing us into line with what we should be doing as good Europeans, if not as people who have an obligation to protect the earth for the next generation and ensure we do not waste finite fossil resources.

There are problems with planning, and in the context of this Bill, I would like to mention one or two. While there are guidelines for planning in local authorities, there is no real easing in terms of people being able to live in rural areas. I come from a rural area and this is dear to my heart. I see the importance of infrastructure and housing, the most important element of infrastructure. If one cannot live in an area, there will be no further development there. There must be provision to build a house in a rural area, with services for it. If there are houses, there are people, and if there are people, there is a need for services. That helps the regeneration of rural areas, but when one has a policy directing people towards the largest centres of population, as currently, it can only lead to continuing depopulation elsewhere. The Minister should re-examine interpretation of the planning guidelines by local authorities. There are some very fine people working as planners for the local authorities and they are under much pressure. Many non-nationals are now working in the area. I sometimes wonder, however, whether they have the expertise and understanding to deal with the rural planning issues that face them daily.

Another point relates to vexatious objectors and it must be examined. I have had personal experience, having unfortunately been involved at a community level with such people. In one situation, I was trying to arrange an extension at St. Brendan's Village in Mulranny, but the whole process was scuppered by people who could write in without giving a name or address and hold up the entire process. They were able to produce a list of objections that would have to be gone through and teased out. There is an onus on the Government to consider that situation, since people should not have the right to frustrate community projects in that way.

That it is happening all over the place. I had to engage the services of a private detective to try to find out what exactly was happening there. I discovered the person supposed to have given the letter of objection to the local authority did not even exist. The block of flats where the person was supposed to be living was one where a great many non-nationals were accommodated, and after extensive inquiries it was found that no such person existed. It was an attempt to frustrate the planning process. Although I got the gardaí to investigate further for me to check that no such person existed, the only thing worrying the local authority was whether it would have somewhere to send the notices regarding what was happening in the planning process.

The Minister must examine this matter, which I have raised before, although I was not at all happy with the response. The Minister must reconsider the situation and perhaps formulate some form of sanction against persons who try to frustrate the planning process in that way. An Bord Pleanála has an important onus to do the right thing and act independently. While I do not doubt the integrity of its staff, I wonder about the lack of representation from the community.

The Irish Rural Development Association was established in response to difficulties with planning in rural areas. I am not in favour of a free-for-all in planning, since there should be some restrictions. However, there must be fair play and an obligation on the Government to ensure the people who live in an area, whom this is all about, should be allowed to remain there if at all possible, just as their families did for generations before them.

I will give an example of a decision by An Bord Pleanála where its own inspectors were over-ruled. If that happens, the board has an obligation to provide a detailed analysis of its reasoning. In the Ringaskiddy incinerator case, there were written objections from 20,000 people, and despite the decision by Cork County Council not to carry out the necessary rezoning, An Bord Pleanála ruled in favour of the development, even over-ruling its own inspectors' findings. That was strange indeed, and where it takes place, An Bord Pleanála should spell out why it is doing so.

One must understand that this is about people. Michael Mohan said that the concept of inclusive design was linked to a universal right of access. The excellent book Building for Everyone by the National Disability Authority stated that the user was at the centre of the issuing process rather than the building or designer, an approach whereby accessibility, central to the process from the outset, can become invisible, properly integrated into the general building design. It concludes that the aim of inclusive design, sometimes called universal design, should be to make it a seamless part of the design process so everyone can participate equally.

It is about equal access rather than disabled access, so we move away from the negativity that accompanies disability. If we move towards equal access and promote ability rather than disability, we will be on the right road. We must not forget that people are in the centre of this equation and must be served.

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