Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)

-----but a total disaster for communities and good planning. In council chambers throughout the country the motto of officials and elected representatives was that developers were good, large development was good and community participation was bad. During that time I was a councillor and huge pressure was put on all of us to rezone and pass material contraventions. Some of these were good and some were terrible. It is worth bearing in mind that most councillors I saw were very honest and had the interests of their community at heart. However, there was undue influence from developers and that lobby. Any councillor who raised concerns about over-development was considered to be backward looking, anti-progress and anti-jobs, whereas in reality he or she was in favour of sustainable development, and for good jobs and progress. Following the general election, the parties coming into government promised a new type of politics and that things would be different from now on. Unfortunately for the public little has changed. Within weeks of taking office the Minister of State decided to terminate the independent inquiries into planning irregularities in the seven local authorities-----

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