Seán Kenny (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Deputy Murphy's Bill, which contains positive measures to deal with the planning process and which aims to make the process more transparent, something I fully support. The Government has inherited many legacy planning issues arising from bad planning decisions, poor planning enforcement, lack of building control oversight and the light-touch regulation that was part of the property bubble, which has left a generation of our citizens in negative equity. Priory Hall and the Dublin north fringe are in my constituency, and we are at the epicentre of bad planning debacles in Dublin. However, the Government has provided solutions to the residents of Priory Hall, which are in train, and it has also provided solutions to those affected by the pyrite problem, which are being progressed. The Government is cleaning up the mess left behind by the alliance of Fianna Fáil, builders and bankers, and it is also dealing with the legacy of unfinished estates.

These approaches are dealing with problems that should not have been allowed to occur. That they did demonstrates that the planning system and the legislation underpinning it was not fit for purpose. As has been indicated on a number of occasions by the Minister of State and the Minister, a commitment has been given to review the Planning and Development Acts and a new planning Bill will be introduced in 2014, primarily to implement the recommendations of the planning tribunal, which I very much welcome. I was a councillor in Dublin during the period covered by the tribunal, when so much abuse of the planning system was perpetrated, particularly in north County Dublin. The modules relating to Baldoyle and Cloghran-Cargobridge in the tribunal clearly demonstrated the level of corruption at the time and names the councillors who were in receipt of corrupt payments.

A number of outstanding issues in the Mahon report are relevant to this legislation. When the report was debated in the House last year, the Carrickmines module was not included because a court case was pending. The case subsequently collapsed last summer when the main witness became ill and it would be appropriate to debate that module now following the publication of that final chapter. I ask the Minister of State to arrange that.

I refer to a number of sections in the Bill. Section 6 proposes that planning permissions be fully compliant with local area plans, and there is merit in this, but care needs to be taken that such a provision does not lead to undue inflexibility or rigidity in the system. The proposals in sections 8 to 10, inclusive, to extend the duration of planing permission require that applications for extensions of permission must comply with the requirements of newspaper notices, site notices and all the other public consultation requirements of the Aarhus Convention. This makes sense and I support that. I also support a review of section 180A, which requires the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to make regulations providing for the phased redemption of a bond or security which the planning authority may specify as a condition to be attached to a planning permission and the index-linking of such bonds or securities. As the Minister has said previously, this proposal is well motivated and is worthy of consideration. I am glad the Government will work with Deputy Murphy on this legislation and I commend her on the solid work she has done.

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