Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail)

I am pleased to have the opportunity to speak on the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Bill. I agree with the Minister when he described this Bill as among the most important legislation to be introduced this term. I will try, in the course of my brief remarks, to stick to the provisions of the Bill.

There is no doubt that the public is demanding the delivery of high quality, cost effective infrastructure, which is vital to the future growth of the economy and the well-being of our society. The Minister, his colleagues and his officials are to be congratulated on bringing forward a Bill that has been carefully considered, is well crafted and balanced in its approach. It sets down a benchmark that we will no longer tolerate the lengthy and costly delays that have dogged us on some critical projects in recent years. The costs of these delays have been principally economic, but a social and environmental cost has also been incurred.

The Bill strikes the correct balance between the need to protect the right of the man and woman on the street to object to any significant project which they feel could effect their every day lives, and the need to deliver as expeditiously as possible the vital roads, sewerage, energy and transport projects which many Deputies have referred to in the public interest.

The concept of the strategic consent process represents a radical new approach which caters for all these requirements in turn. The public will be consulted and have their views taken into account, while at the same time local authorities will be consulted. I congratulate the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, on his initiative in ensuring that local elected representatives are fully involved in the process and that their views, as well as the views of council officials, are taken into account as part of the new approach being adopted in this worthwhile Bill. This matter has been alluded to by Deputy Durkan. The Minister has not lost sight of where he came from, and he remains fully committed to the role of the local councillor.

Another very positive aspect of the Bill relates to the issue of community gain, and I welcome that power will be given to An Bord Pleanála to ensure that in certain circumstances direct benefits will be provided to local communities affected by major projects. This will be done by attaching conditions to the eventual grant of consent. I ask the Minister to ensure that the issue of community gain is thoroughly explored and agreed at the early consultation stage of any project if at all possible, and that the greatest possible consensus be achieved between local community stakeholders and the local authorities involved.

This approach, coupled with the specific role identified for local councillors in the Bill, will strengthen local democracy in that the councillors' role in policy formulation, which is limited to the development plan process, will be extended to include an important input to the decision-making process on major strategic projects which affect their area.

I welcome the inclusion in the Bill of the provision in section 9, which aims to tackle the activities of rogue developers. Deputy Durkan will be familiar with difficulties in County Kildare. We have too often come across contractors and developers who bring with them a poor track record for finishing work properly or finishing it all. They may have exploited local authorities and the planning system time and again and visited cost and frustration on individuals and communities.

The Bill will place the onus, correctly, on the contractor to show that past performance does not warrant a refusal of permission. This provision will allow local authorities to take on rogue developers in response to shoddy previous performance. I hope that councils will demonstrate a willingness to rise to the challenge that the Bill presents to take on and eradicate cowboy developers. There has been a willingness on the part of local authorities to take on small players and individuals. I hope they will show the same enthusiasm, given the provisions in this Bill, to take on those who have been a burden on local communities.

The Bill also provides for wider access to the judicial review process for environmental non-governmental organisations, thereby protecting their right to object while at the same time eliminating the costly delays experienced in the recent past. The right of an individual to object to a specific infrastructural project is maintained, as it should be. However, the streamlining of the public consultation process and the new arrangements allowing for judicial reviews should allow projects to be dealt with more speedily. I hope this new approach will end the delays caused to many vital projects by a seemingly endless series of legal actions.

The framework of the strategic consent process will now commence with an initial submission to An Bord Pleanála and, if it decides a project is eligible for inclusion in the strategic infrastructure process, it will see the proposals through to a final decision, with a defined consultation process and a strict timeline giving clarity to the delivery of infrastructural projects nationally. There have been vast improvements in recent years in the speed of delivery of major road projects. The bypasses of Monasterevin, Cashel and Kilcock, among others, have all been completed months ahead of schedule and within budget. However, this performance needs to be replicated in all other areas of infrastructural development, as the time lost in the planning of all these projects has been hugely costly to the taxpayer and detrimental to our economic development.

This Bill gives the opportunity to streamline the planning process and protect the taxpayer from further delays. I welcome the emphasis the Bill places on the necessity for comprehensive pre-planning discussions for the type of major projects envisaged. This sensible approach will help to speed up the delivery of vital projects by ensuring all major issues and concerns are flagged well in advance of the formal application process.

Indeed, the day to day operation of local planning departments, such as my own in Kildare, could be enormously enhanced, with output increased and decision-making accelerated, if there was a similar emphasis on effective pre-planning consultations on routine applications. Not alone could this be done, but we could, through consensus, achieve a much better quality built environment across the country.

There has been criticism in some quarters of the delay in bringing this Bill before the House, but the changes being proposed are fundamental and will radically change the management of the planning process in this area. Therefore it is entirely proper the Minister gave the matter due consideration before coming forward with the measures included in the Bill. It is better to have carefully crafted legislation than an ill-considered, badly thought out set of proposals, which would not achieve the aim of removing the various bottlenecks which hinder the delivery of major projects throughout the country.

Effecting these changes will require the creation of a new section of An Bord Pleanála to oversee the specific requirements included in the Bill. The Minister has set out the particular responsibilities he intends to give to the chairman, deputy chairman and other members of the board and I hope the necessary level of experienced staffing will also be provided to the new section to ensure the work is done effectively.

The decision to designate specific judges to manage the process of applications through the High Court represents another positive step in the right direction. The benefits of these changes will be obvious as time progresses and the common sense of the approach being adopted will engender widespread public support. There is a public appetite for the changes envisaged among people who have been frustrated at the delays inflicted on a number of vital projects around the country in recent years.

My home town of Kildare was denied its bypass for a number of years. Deputy Dennehy referred to the hours he spent sitting in traffic logjams in Kildare. The delays were due to a succession of challenges, some of which have entered modern folklore. While the battle was being fought for the snail a number of people lost their lives unnecessarily on the old N7. Had this legislation been in place during that debacle in the 1990s the twin objective of human welfare and environmental protection could have been achieved in a far speedier timeframe. I do not wish other communities to suffer in the same way.

The ongoing development of our country is dependent on the achievement of vastly improved levels of infrastructure. The public is firmly convinced that we are living in a very wealthy country and wants our new found wealth to be prudently invested in the fast delivery of facilities and services, similar to what they have experienced in other parts of the world. The public mood will no longer tolerate cost overruns or inordinate delays.

It is appropriate that the planning service will now be improved in four vital areas. First, there will now be a single stage process of approval for projects, thereby reducing drastically the timescale in completing the application. There will also be a rigorous assessment of all projects, including their environmental impact, involving public consultation and input from local authorities and non-governmental organisations at all stages. There will be certainty of timeframes, which will undoubtedly allow for a sharper focus on the application and its future delivery. Finally, the Bill incorporates the concept of community gain, which will be of great benefit to the communities directly affected by largescale projects.

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