Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

I accept your ruling. Even Senators still sitting in the Upper House performed questionable acts back then. I note that an individual sitting in the Upper House admitted to the tribunal that he failed to disclose a £2,500 donation from Monarch Properties in 1992. The same individual caught my party leader in a headlock. It is time for the Taoiseach to take action and call to account those in his party who suffered from amnesia. Curious rezonings are still going on around Ireland. One need only glance at the website Irishcorruption.com to see many of the counties throughout Ireland being named and the individual acts of councillors who are performing rezonings for all the wrong reasons today.

It is not a victimless crime. It is the people who suffer, those who have to commute longer distances to work, those who have no option of public transport who must have a car to drive several miles to buy a litre of milk, whose children have to be shoved into the car to get to school, and whose workplace is located dozens of miles from where they live. That is the legacy of corrupt rezoning that continues to today. It is time a line was drawn in the sand by the Taoiseach and members of the Cabinet to rule out those kinds of rezoning.

The only action taken by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government was to call to attention Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council for not rezoning enough land and the debased currency under his tenure and previous Ministers for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government continues without a whimper from successive Ministers.

The way forward is simple. All parties must decline funding from developers as the mere acceptance of such moneys is an undue influence on development decisions. We have to put in place measures to ensure the majority of the increase of value in rezoned land accrues to the State and we have to endorse and legislate for the recommendations of the Kenny report of 1974. Put simply, that report stated that local authorities should have a pre-emptive right to acquire rezoned land at the existing use value plus 25%. That, in one fell swoop, would remove the influence brought to bear on elected representatives. It would also help to reduce the crazy house price inflation of recent years. It would allow local authorities to buy land for development for housing, for local authority housing, voluntary housing associations and affordable housing. That would slice a significant chunk off the over-heated prices in the marketplace.

There is an onus on the Taoiseach to act. He was handed the ninth report of the All-Party Committee on the Constitution almost two years ago which contains the recommendations of the Kenny report and has failed to legislate. The Taoiseach should not only move against Members of the Government but on those recommendations that have held the test of time. Time and again in the property pages we note that lands have increased tenfold and 100 fold in value overnight as a result of questionable rezonings. The answer is simple and the Minister could move on that if the will was there but, sadly, I doubt the will is there.

We also need to create properly planned communities. They need to be well-designed and contain a variety of housing types and tenures. The Minister must upgrade the building regulations that have fallen far behind what is on the Statute Book in the UK. We need a mixture of uses in development, rather than sterile industrial estates located miles from where people live. We need to encourage people to live, work and relax within the same neighbourhood. That can be done and if the Minister is mindful he can make that happen through the use of planning regulations. We also need to ensure these communities are well linked by sustainable transport. In partnership with his colleague, the Minister for Transport, he can make that happen and I urge him to do so.

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