Martin Ferris (Kerry North, Sinn Fein)

This Bill is timely, given the ongoing issues with property development and planning matters. To that extent, it can be welcomed. I support the positive proposals in the legislation which are designed to introduce improvements in the overall planning process. However, while I will not vote against Second Stage, I will propose amendments on Committee Stage as there are improvements that could be made.

The recent flooding in many parts of the country - leading, in some cases, to the virtual destruction of people's homes - has highlighted deficiencies in local planning and raised serious questions about the permitted location of housing developments and the procedures that resulted in permission being granted.

Several weeks ago I visited Carlow, Sallins, the Shannon basin and parts of west Cork. In many areas it was evident to the naked eye that granting planning permission for developments was a recipe for disaster. I raised this issue before Christmas, mentioning the building of homes in locations in which there were historical records of flooding. There may not have been flooding in some of these locations for many years - perhaps even in living memory - but where housing developments were allowed to proceed in locations close to rivers or in water basins, that risk was always present. Some of the newer developments where flooding did take place were in areas whose placenames actually referred to water, which might have provided a clue to those dealing with the planning applications. Two years ago, not far from where I live, in Banna - part of which is under water for perhaps six weeks of the year - planning permission was granted for a mobile home park, although it was subsequently refused by An Bord Pleanála.

The dangerous phenomenon of developers using elected representatives to put pressure on council employees, planners and so forth, to secure planning permission to satisfy their own greed, needs to be addressed. Surely planners and developers ought to have paused and considered why nobody had built in locations such as I mentioned, even though they were close to existing settlements. We now know the reasons, but unfortunately that knowledge comes too late for those whose homes have been destroyed.

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