John Halligan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This is one of the most practical and potentially useful Bills to come before the Dáil for some time. Any Deputy who has served on a local authority knows the state of chaos that prevailed for far too long in our planning system, the consequences of which are now entrenched in our local communities. When I was a city councillor I was constantly struck by the number of times that approval was given to developments that were contrary to the local development plans. Another major issue was the manner in which EU environmental laws were disregarded. I recall one incident in my constituency in which Waterford County Council granted planning permission for a major hotel development on a site that was designated as a special protection area. The State had selected that site as being of conservation importance. It beggars belief that such a decision could have been made with the county council knowing the area and the State having designated it as one of conservation importance.

The volume of unsustainable land zoning that went on during the boom years speaks for itself. According to figures I got from An Taisce, at the onset of our economic collapse we had enough zoned land to provide for almost a doubling of the population to 8 million, some 42,000 hectares were zoned for residential development, almost all of that land consisted of green-field sites.

Approximately 40% of the €75 billion property portfolio transferred to NAMA is categorised as development land. The sad reality, as the Minister of State and many of us know, is that much of that land was not going to be built upon in the first place and it probably never will be built on. We must put in place efficient safeguards to ensure this does not happen again. The needs of the community must be foremost when the zoning of land is under consideration, as the previous Deputy stated in respect of her area. Even though the Government supports this Bill, I am not satisfied that it has tackled the system in which developers were allowed to make hugely significant decisions about which land would be used with little or no planning advice. This happened throughout the country. An Taisce estimates that between 2000 and 2011 appeals taken against inappropriate speculative development reduced the value of the impaired loans by at least €505 million. These are loans that NAMA would have had to purchase in any event or, had they remained outside the scope of NAMA, they would have remained with financial institutions as non-performing burdens. Those are liabilities that Irish taxpayers are currently underwriting.

The Government has repeatedly stated that the approach to planning during the boom years, if allowed to prevail, would hinder sustainable growth into the future. However, its approach to the existing system has been far from satisfactory and it has been left, as the Minister of State can note, to those on the Opposition benches to address this issue. For this, I highly commend Deputy Catherine Murphy on her pragmatic solution which could go some considerable way towards promoting a transparent system that people can have confidence in and that will not allow another property bubble to engulf this country.

The Government came to power with a strong mandate for reform. Since then the planning system has remained open to widespread abuse and the flouting of regulations. Allegations of malpractice within seven local authorities were investigated internally by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and those investigations deduced that there was no corruption in the planning system, yet the independent Mahon report identified evidence of "systematic weakness" within the same system. How can we balance that? The Department's internal investigation found that there was nothing wrong and it took the Mahon tribunal, which had more or less the same information that the Government and the previous Government had, to make that finding. Questions need to be asked and answered - if they are to be answered - about that over the next months and years.

Compounding all of this, local authority housing strategies remain ill-equipped to deal with the evolving housing market in this country. I cannot let this opportunity pass without mentioning the those who are homeless. The number who are homeless is the highest in decades. The number of people sleeping rough in Dublin has increased by almost 50% since April, according to official figures. We cannot ignore the crisis in public housing, local authorities and the planning system and the participation in that process. Efficient planning will play a critical part in the economic recovery that the Government is keen to tell us is coming. The proposals in this Bill would go a long way to achieving that. It is important to note that there would be little additional cost burden to the State if these reforms were implemented, although they would save money in the long term.

I hope that in the Government, in accepting this Bill, will accept it in its entirely. Having read it, I believe it is excellent. I have shown it to people who have worked in planning in my constituency and they have told me it is excellent. I commend Deputy Murphy on her enormous effort in introducing this Bill. I urge the co-operation of all parties in bringing it to Committee Stage without any amendments, and I hope the Minister of State will not put forward any amendment to it.

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