John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

-----which is more important, I welcome the report of the Mahon tribunal. Fifteen years is a long time to wait for that report, with a cost of €300 million. Some people I met in recent days wondered about the costs of the tribunal and were critical of the high amount of moneys paid to judges and barristers, but that was the position at the time. During my time as a Member, and the Minister, Deputy Hogan, has probably been here as long as me, we had the Flood tribunal report, the Moriarty tribunal report and now the Mahon tribunal report. We must learn lessons from all of the tribunals on where we should go for the future.

This tribunal has done valuable work in exposing wrongdoing by politicians across the political divide. I am sad to say that the majority involved in the Mahon tribunal have been from my party but some were from other parties as well. Deputy Billy Timmins mentioned Bertie Ahern who certainly did tremendous work on the peace process. We all want to acknowledge this, but unfortunately he is now caught up in the report from the Mahon tribunal. We can never lose sight of the work he did, with many people at the time, to bring peace to this island. It started with Albert Reynolds and continued with John Bruton and we must also acknowledge this. Bertie Ahern, with many other people, put the final touches to the peace process.

Corruption in any walk of life is very wrong, and it is even worse if it involves elected men and women in whom people put their trust as public representatives at local or national level. The Mahon tribunal report is a serious indictment of many people who held public office at all levels of public life, not only politicians but also officials. It is not good that people in such high office, either elected by large numbers of voters or officials in high positions, would carry out such misdemeanours. It is not acceptable and should not be tolerated now or ever.

I listened to the Minister of State, Deputy Alan Kelly, this morning when he attacked Fianna Fáil. We are used to him attacking Fianna Fáil and there is nothing new in it. The difference between his contribution and that of the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, was very striking. He had a holier than thou attitude about the Labour Party. As we all know, the high moral ground is a dangerous place to be and I will say no more on this.

The ambition of the thousands of decent and honourable Fianna Fáil people throughout the country is to improve the quality of life for our people. As the tribunal has pointed out, we have had some rotten apples in the barrel. They must be removed from the party. Some have been removed and others will be removed in the coming days. The party owes it to our thousands of supporters who are horrified by the report of the Mahon tribunal to clean up the act in our party. I have been in this House for a long time and I have worked with my colleagues in Wexford from many years since Deputy Howlin, Avril Doyle and I were first elected. All of those on the council at that time were decent and honourable and were there for the common good of the people. They were not there to take handouts or to be involved in corruption. Our only interest in the planning process at county council level was to improve the quality of life for our people to allow investments to take place, encourage people to invest in the county and introduce suitable county development plans.

Unfortunately during the Celtic tiger era the planning process went cuckoo. Local authorities lost control and county development plans went out the window and were ignored, certainly in Dublin and the larger cities. This was a major mistake. I remember when the county manager was reviewing the development plan he brought proposals for each electoral areas along with consultants' reports stating very clearly what was required for housing, retail and commercial activity over the coming five years. We then zoned the land based on these recommendations. It seems in some counties the county development plan and the reports of the county manager and the consultants were constantly ignored. As a result we now have cities and towns which have been destroyed. People live in ghettos and ghost estates. We have huge housing estates with thousands of houses built in an area with no shops, schools or sports facilities.

We also have out-of-town shopping centres where multinational supermarkets came in and played one county or town off another, threatening to move elsewhere if they did not get an out of town shopping centre. Unplanned developments have destroyed the heart of many smaller towns. In New Ross, Dunnes Stores, Tesco, Lidl and Aldi are all based on the outskirts and the heart of the town centre has been decimated. This was a mistake.

Recently I attended a funeral in Adamstown in west Dublin. The Minister, Deputy Hogan, has responsibility for the environment and I must say this type of development must never be allowed to happen again because it is not conducive to good living. People cannot live the way they should because of the lack of housing, schools, shops and other facilities. I hope we will not find ourselves in this position again.

During the Celtic tiger era we had a huge demand for planning. Wexford County Council dealt with 10,000 planning applications per year. It was unbelievable. There were few extra staff and decisions were made quickly. In some cases the wrong decision was made. Perhaps it has gone in the other direction but I am glad to say that at least those dealing with planning can make proper decisions. Last year, Wexford County Council received less than 1,000 planning applications. We would like to see this figure increase in the coming years but we would not like to return to the situation we were in previously.

The Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, pointed out very clearly that it is very important we take on board the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal. She outlined some of the issues she will focus on, particularly with regard to planning and planning regulators. This situation should not be allowed to happen again. When the Minister replies to the debate, perhaps he will speak about the fact that the Moriarty tribunal report has been put on the shelf and none of its recommendations has been implemented.

The Minister withdrew the report on seven local authorities and will do an internal report on them instead.

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