Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

The Green Party is not the first to do this. The previous Government, to be fair, passed the Planning and Development Act 2000 which introduced important initiatives, such as that on strategic development zones. Fianna Fáil has the second highest number of councillors in local democracy, yet it seems to be sleepwalking into an undermining of it because it seems to be cowed by the Green Party. Its tail is down between its legs and the Green Party tail is wagging the dog regarding planning and wildlife legislation.

This Bill, for all its good elements, contains provisions which are subtlety undermining democracy. The Green Party says it wants more public participation and is in favour of the Aarhus convention but in this Bill it does not trust the public and is trying to restrict what it can do regarding making submissions. It wants to stop what it sees as the bad public from making submissions and keep what it considers is good from the public. It is making a judgment about the type of submissions people might make. It is also in favour of local democracy and has a local government White Paper.

Yet, in this Bill the Green Party is subtlety undermining democracy. Deputy Gogarty gave an example where something was introduced in a development plan. When the public kicks up about zonings very often they are dropped. If one allows the public to take an interest in zonings it can in turn influence their elected representatives on the council. Many bad zoning decisions have been dropped. We have to allow democracy to work.

If bad decisions are made there are other ways of dealing with it, rather than undermining local democracy. In this Bill the Government is handing over the power to a county manager. It is presuming the county manager will always be right and that councillors and the public cannot be trusted.

See this speech in context