Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)

The guidelines that are published are only guidelines. When Deputy Batt O'Keeffe was Minister of State in the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, he published guidelines on the relaxation of rules for one-off houses in rural areas. The guidelines that were issued stated councillors must have regard to development plans as they existed in local authority areas.

However, the local development plan itself had very stringent rules and regulations on green belt areas, and certain types of designations for particular areas which superseded the guidelines themselves. It did not make any change whatsoever to the number of one-off houses built as a result of the publication of those guidelines.

Similarly, the Minister, Deputy Gormley, published guidelines last week - or gave notice of his intention to publish guidelines - on houses on national secondary routes. I am aware of three cases of people who have a genuine housing need who wish to build on family owned land on a national secondary route. I have regard to the guidelines published by the Minister but I am told by the local authority that the development plan, which was adopted by the members elected by the people will supersede those guidelines. There is a precedent whereby a local authority granted planning on a national secondary route and it was appealed by the NRA to An Bord Pleanála in any case.

The issuance of guidelines is a bit of a sham to be honest. Sometimes, they are deliberately put out there by Ministers to give voice to the idea that they are somehow dealing with an issue. In reality, I have never seen them have an effect in how they are transposed. The local development plan as passed under a reserve function always seems to take precedent.

In essence, the point I am trying to make is that if we further diminish the power of local public representatives to intervene in planning cases or in the planning laws, too much power will be ceded to the Minister who may not have regard to local factors and the grey area that exists which might push a case one way or the other. If too much power is prescribed in a centralised way it will have a negative impact on the ability of a local authority to function as it relates to planning, and good planning at that.

I fail to understand the Green Party's position on this. I state respectfully and without any malice that what Deputy Gogarty is saying in effect is that the gentlemen and ladies on local authorities have received their democratic mandates from the people but the Green Party does not trust them to exercise that mandate as it relates to the planning process and therefore it will instigate a set of rules and regulations that will supersede their powers. By implication, what is stated is that the people are wrong. The people put in the councillors and therefore there is an implication in the legislation that the councillors made mistakes and the Green Party will come along and rectify those mistakes in a condescending and patronising fashion.

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