John Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

From what we have seen of the report thus far, it is clearly another whitewash. It was initiated with the sole purpose of rolling back on the proper scrutiny offered by a series of time limited and fully costed independent investigations. Internal reviews were carried out by the Department in 2009 and 2010 on foot of complaints about planning practices in local authorities. While other local authorities may also merit investigation the then Minister, Deputy Gormley, sought internal reviews into six and subsequently ordered independent investigations on the basis of the findings of the reviews.

I look forward to hearing the Minister of State outline what new information may have come from the reviews. It is also important that we know who carried them out, who acted as liaison between the Department and local authorities and who supplied the information to the Department.

The departure from the previous reports which prompted Mr. Gormley to initiate independent reviews and the lack of hard findings indicate that the internal report cannot be taken seriously. It sets out 12 recommendations which will be overseen by a consultant hired by the Minister of State. Clearly she believes her Department is capable of carrying out a sensitive internal review of councils which are dominated by Government parties and have been unable to implement reform. Why is she not in favour of independent experts? She defends the recommendations as representing a comprehensive programme of reform but in reality they are shallow and cosmetic changes. For example, the Department issued a circular letter to every local authority reminding it of the law. The planners and the director of planning in my county are aware of the law and how they should operate within the law. I wonder why the Minister is sending out circulars to remind them of the law. If we had an independent inquiry, we might have a different response from the Minister and the Government but the Minister thought differently.

Another shallow recommendation is that there should be a meeting once a year between the Minister and the County and City Managers Association. From my time on local authorities and from hearing about it in recent years, I know every Minister meets city and county managers on a regular basis. There is nothing new about it. The county and city managers meeting with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government does not constitute comprehensive reform. It is a good idea that Ministers and county and city managers meet on a regular basis because the majority of work in local authorities is handed down from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, as is the money. One expects a two-way process between the Minister and his officials, and the local authorities.

It was not the irregularities in planning but incompetence during the boom years. During the Celtic tiger era, up to 6,000 planning applications were dealt with by Wexford County Council. I doubt the council had the planning staff to deal with the applications in a comprehensive way. The council had to make planning decisions within eight weeks unless it sought an extension of time. It was under pressure to ensure planning decisions were made quickly and that the best decision was made.

Local authorities refused planning permission on the grounds of local knowledge, the environment and on the grounds that the development was not suitable to the area before An Bord Pleanála overruled the decisions of local authorities. It is regarded as an independent body but in overruling the refusals of local authorities and granting permission it left much to be desired. An Taisce did not want one-off rural housing built and objected strenuously in Wexford and elsewhere to one-off houses on environmental grounds and on any grounds on which they could object. They wanted to drive everyone into the urban centres and to downgrade rural communities. It caused major problems with the lack of population in rural communities.

The Minister of State should consider reverting to independent reviews to be carried out by consultants in an independent manner. The report carried out by the Department is not independent or comprehensive and it does nothing to bring about expertise or methods so that people believe planning is being carried out in the correct way. The report is a whitewash. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Sullivan, is responsible and should leave this report to one side and carry out the local authority reports initiated by John Gormley. The report is not in the best interests of planning for the future in the country.

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