Joanna Tuffy (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

The Green Party no longer has any interest in democracy. That is the bottom line; the Green Party does not care about local democracy. I do not know why the Minister is bothering to introduce a White Paper when, if this is a sign of what is to come, it looks like he plans to erode local democracy gradually. It is essentially a matter of centralising power in the hands of the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The Green Party has developed a narrative where it places all the blame for past planning mistakes on the councillors from the various parties including my own party, even though it was our representatives - people such as Eithne FitzGerald and Frank Buckley - who were fighting poor rezoning decisions and taking brave stands long before the Green Party had any local authority members.

I was on the council with Deputy Gogarty and we had a lot in common. I accept he made good decisions on planning and we were often on the same side. No matter what I think about other people's decisions, however, it is a fundamental tenet of democracy that I allow people to make a decision. They are elected by the public and they make decisions, ideally under a framework that allows for the best decisions, but if they make bad decisions, that is democracy and that electorate can deal with that at election time.

I was directly elected to this House, as was every other Deputy and it is democratic that we make our own decisions. We are then held accountable and we can explain the decisions we made. The Bill allows a Minister to make a development plan when that is a fundamental aspect of the role of councillors.

The story that all bad planning decisions were thanks to councillors exercising their democratic mandate is not true, often the decisions that were questionable were thanks to ministerial guidelines. The ministerial guidelines for higher residential density led to apartment complexes being built in small villages in Leitrim. The then Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, introduce those guidelines, leaving councils with no choice but to implement them. The idea the Minister will be always pure, protecting people from the councillors they elected, is rubbish and I have a fundamental problem with that. I cannot see how any elected representative can stand over it. The Minister is not elected by the people, he is part of the Cabinet and there is too much power resting with the executive as it is. It is a common agreement that power is now vested in the Cabinet and it now rides roughshod over Government backbenchers like Deputy Mattie McGrath.

On Committee Stage, the amendments formed a bigger document than the Bill and there are even more amendments today. That has muddied the waters, allowing elements to go through that will erode democracy. The principle is fine that planning must be reformed, and safety nets must be provided to ensure councillors and planning officials take into account the right things, but this removes the power of local authorities to make their own development plans and that is wrong.

See this speech in context