Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I move:

That Dáil Éireann:

- rejects the Government's decision to terminate independent inquiries into planning irregularities in seven local authorities in June 2011;

- denies the Government's excuse that no work had been done on progressing the inquiries;

- accepts that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government inherited a completed tendering process for the selection of an external panel and letters of appointment ready to be issued to members of the panel;

- dismisses the Government's claim that an internal review process would be more effective given that internal reviews by county managers had already been completed in response to ministerial requests;

- strongly disagrees with comments that the claims involved in the planning inquiries were 'spurious, mostly';

- notes with concern planning irregularities in other local authority areas not covered in the original inquiries such as Waterford as outlined in the recent High Court corruption case against a former Fine Gael councillor;

- regrets the failure of the Government to progress these reports over their 15 months in office;

- notes that all of these councils under review, with the exception of Donegal, are primarily controlled by Fine Gael and the Labour Party;

- acknowledges and regrets the findings of the Mahon tribunal into certain planning matters;

- recognises the need, in view of the Moriarty and Mahon tribunals, to re-build public confidence in the planning and political systems; and

- calls on the Government to re-open independent inquiries into planning irregularities in the local authorities in question.

There have been major changes since this morning on this issue, which I welcome. I understand that at 6.45 p.m. today, the Government published the internal report.

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