Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I am relying on information given to me by officials and which they received from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. This is the information that was sent to them from the Department. Perhaps the Minister should check this out with his officials. The population targets are set out in black and white in the circular issued by the Department. I have every confidence in public officials to tell us the truth. If the Minister says this information is wrong, then the director of services in Carlow County Council is wrong. I look forward to hearing from the Minister whether he is correct.

There is a herding mentality, given the information made available in this instance, which, hopefully is not replicated throughout the country. An issue I would like the Minister to address is that of development contributions. Perhaps the Minister will bring forward an amendment that will allow a local authority, at a time when it is hard to get money from development due, perhaps, to excessive charges that were imposed when times were better, to look at part of the scheme without actually reviewing the entire scheme and adopt more conciliatory pro-employment measures that would make a difference at this time.

It was interesting recently to hear a rural chief planner explain to a local representative that the county development plan currently being prepared was not about facilitating the future of the county but mostly about protection of the landscape and the control of housing. I do not know when a county development plan became about those sole objectives. I always thought planning was not about maintenance of the present but planning for the future. Planning, even in its ancient format, has been with us for a long time although it has only been regulated here since 1963. We know the reasons the 1963 Act was necessary and why there have been amendments to the Act from time to time since then. However, planning always retained the flexibility to allow local elected representatives and communities to have a say. This legislation moves away from that.

In the past few decades mapping has increasingly become confused with planning. The instruments that are used to prepare for planning, such as the mapping of land uses, demographics and density, have become ends in themselves. Such records are then converted to zoning maps that restrict future uses to those that conform with existing ones. Each new provision of the planning Acts has also moved further away from any concern about the future, to become increasingly associated with forces that seek to limit, control or prevent development necessary to sustain economic or community activity. It is unfortunate that planning is now often synonymous with blocking progress. With tribunals, political corruption and prevention of development, planning has not moved far from former Deputy and Minister, Michael Smith's, 1993 description of planning as a debased currency, associated with bureaucracy, interference, administration, red tape, incomprehensible decisions and detachment from the very people for whom the plans are supposed to be created.

More important than all this, however, is the fact that we are far more influenced by what happens outside Ireland than ever before and there is a greater obligation to respond to those outside influences. European Union directives, CAP reform, the global economy and foreign direct investment are determining our planning for the future. It is critical, therefore, to reflect on the role of planning in creating and sustaining what has become known as the housing bubble, which had little to do with increases in the cost or value of bricks and mortar and more to do with the value of the sites, which was solely the result of planning. All market economies rise and fall on the back of supply and demand. Land use planning determined the timely supply of available and appropriately zoned and serviced land. Poor planning is a classic example of market failure. It is surprising that planning has not yet been put on trial anywhere, along with the greed of speculators and the carelessness of banks, for being partly to blame for current upheavals in the property market. It should be. The Dublin Docklands Development Authority, which has been the subject of much investigation by the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, offers a clear indication of how not to engage with an organisation that is a non-commercial State body. It ensured the State sustained a loss of €213 million over a number of years. It was led by banks and greedy developers rather than a proper master plan.

We can plan for many things for the future and we must do so not by looking back to the past, but at the opportunities that Ireland might be able to address in the future. There will be tough questions because we are competing with many other jurisdictions. This legislation should be reconsidered. It seeks to put everything together under the umbrella of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and to corral all local decision making to conform with the diktat of the Custom House. That is totally at variance with so-called Government policy, as laid out in the Green Paper, on devolving power to local authorities. The opportunities that planning offers to boost economic activity now are being straitjacketed through the Minister having the ultimate decision on every plan, local and county. It is a micromanagement that is not healthy for democracy. For those reasons, I urge the Minister to revisit the important issues in planning and development that are essential to giving people hope of living in a sustainable way in their communities, which we all support, and to providing employment opportunities so people can live and work in their own areas. There are several examples of where that has not happened.

The manner in which the Minister seeks to centralise everything is not the way to go. For that reason I have grave reservations about the thrust of this policy and the damage it will do to the political system in the future, notwithstanding the Minister's bona fides in bringing forward the legislation.

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