Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Technical Group and particularly Deputy Catherine Murphy for introducing this Bill and allowing me speaking time. It is prudent, right and proper that we have a debate on the Bill because it shines a light on an issue clouded in mystery and controversy for many years. The majority of Members have been members of local authorities. Everyone must speak about their own experience but I will defend the work done by planners, management and councillors in County Kerry. Sometimes the media like to give the impression that councillors over-zoned land for a multitude of reasons, some of which were proper and heartfelt reasons. They wanted to provide land in a genuine way for development and zoning. Others did it for personal financial gain. That was totally wrong but it is equally wrong to paint everyone with the same brush. There were some genuine councillors. They use of section 4 and section 140 motions was much maligned. Every such motion I tabled before Kerry County Council was done after a thoughtful process. It was done to provide a family home for young people, primarily those who wanted to build on family farms. Many people are in those houses and they have nice young families and I will never make an apology to anyone in respect of my record on planning issues in County Kerry. I will never apologise on my planning record to someone in journalism who knows little or nothing about planning.

Important issues are dealt with in this Private Members' Bill. A huge amount of work went into it. This allows us the opportunity to discuss issues like An Bord Pleanála, which has many questions to answer. I could never understand how that board can send out an inspector to a place like County Kerry or another part of the country to examine a planning issue where the appeal is before the board. The consultant or inspector is qualified to do a job and write a report. In many instances, the consultant goes back to the board with the report and the board sits, usually in the evening, and in its infinite wisdom overturns the planner's report. It does not matter whether the planner is saying "Yes" or "No". In many instances, the inspector's report is overturned and I can never understand it. People who had never visited the site had sent out a supposedly competent person and, not having looked at the site and only having read the report, chose to overturn the inspector's decision. It always baffled me. I do not think it was right and An Bord Pleanála has many questions to answer. I would like to see it accounting for its activity, particularly during the boom.

The Bill addresses ghost estates and I am dealing with people living in them. It is a horrible thing for young families with children in an estate that is not a safe place to raise children. In many cases, they have paid above the odds for houses.

They are left in a place with unfinished roads and public areas, with half-finished houses in a state of total disrepair while trying to live and raise young families. To be honest, it is like living in hell. I have visited many of these estates and it is an awful predicament for people. They are locked in and there is no way out, as they cannot sell the property because they would not get a fraction of what they paid for it. Who in the name of God would anyone want to move into a ghost estate or half-finished development?

With regard to the track record of councillors, I can just speak for my colleagues. They were driven by a very genuine interest in helping people and in the majority of cases of "overzoning", as it may be called, the county councillors were not at fault, rather the planners who made proposals to zone land in a particular way in county development plans. Of course there were rogues and people who blackguarded the system because they were dishonest, and I hope those people were rooted out, which would have been the proper thing to do. I welcome the debate at a time like this, when we can look to the future and try to address the problems of the past.

We must ensure that safety mechanisms can be put in place so we never again have too much development in the wrong places. Hotels were built where there was no demand for them because builders who knew nothing about the hotel, catering or hospitality sector thought they could become hoteliers overnight just because they could get planning and build a hotel with a scheme of houses beside it in order to make a quick buck. Those people put hotels in places they should never have been in the first place. We must realise there are hotels in Ireland which, unfortunately, will have to close because there is no place in the market for them.

I thank Deputy Catherine Murphy for her excellent work in preparing this legislation. Much time, diligence and work goes into introducing a Private Members' Bill like this to the House, so I commend her for doing so.

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