Trevor Sargent (Dublin North, Green Party)

I move:

"That Dáil Éireann, in view of the on going and damning admissions that senior politicians have received payments, which can only have been made to promote certain vested interests at the expense of the common interest of the Irish people, their families and communities:

—condemns those parties that have failed to discipline their members for their collective amnesia with regard to moneys received from developers and their agents at the time of wide-scale rezonings by local authorities;

—deplores the culture of alleged corrupt planning and rezoning that has resulted in urban sprawl, where schools, playgrounds, local jobs and public transport were not provided in tandem with housing;

—regrets the Government's continual and overwhelming support for the interests of private developers over the public interest, which has resulted in its failure to provide a suitable mix of social and affordable homes; and

—condemns the poor transport planning which in combination with questionable rezoning led to a doubling of the average commuting distance between 1991 and 2002, resulting in a significant deterioration in people's quality of life; calls on all parties to:

—decline funding from developers, as the mere acceptance of such moneys may be constructed as having an undue influence on development decisions;

—put in place measures to ensure that the majority of the increase of value in rezoned land shall accrue to the State and endorse the recommendation of the Kenny report of 1974 that would allow local authorities to purchase land for housing at the existing use value plus 25%; and

—create properly planned communities that are well-designed, that contain a variety of housing types and tenures, with mixed-use developments, and that are well-linked by sustainable transport links.

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