Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Sinn Féin motion which Fianna Fáil will be supporting. Back in 2012, we proposed a similar motion in response to the Mahon tribunal report. If that position had been adopted then we would be a lot further on than we currently are.

That said, I do acknowledge that there has been a lot of progress as outlined in the Minister's script. I am intrigued, however, because this obviously slipped through the Labour and Fine Gael press offices. He spoke of substantial reform in 2000 and again in 2010 which has transformed the shape of the planning process and particularly the land use re-zoning process. That is not bad for a Government that was supposed to have wrecked the country. Every time the Minister talks about planning he normally does not refer to that kind of work that was done, but I welcome that acknowledgement.

So many issues are being reviewed in the context of the economic collapse that planning decisions around the country must be among them. While we have a banking inquiry, some thought also needs to be given to over-planning and unsuitable planning. In his remarks, the Minister said that work is under way with a view to appointing a regulator. It should be done so that we do not end up in a situation again where Members of this House will in future have to deal with issues such as flooding, pyrite and lack of services.

We recently dealt with a Private Members' business item concerning speeding in housing estates. That kind of thing, however, should be the purview of a properly functioning planning process that is in tune with the needs of communities it purports to represent.

I heard the end of Deputy O'Donovan's tirade and found myself agreeing with a lot of what he said. That is not a normal condition for me and I hope there is some treatment for it. There are serious issues concerning the Minister's role in interpreting and reviewing county development plans, particularly where the Minister issues directions to a local authority forcing it to revise the plan. Local authority representatives are directly elected by their communities and are directly accountable to them every five years.

They must stand up and defend their position, role and decisions. A Minister or a Minister's officials are far removed from those communities and the impact of their decision on communities. If we are serious about reforming local government, we must give it the power to make decisions for communities.

I make no apology for representing a rural area. I have just come from a phone call to a community in north Mayo of approximately 1,900 people where the HSE apparently cannot get a GP. There are 22 practices in rural communities around the country where the HSE apparently cannot get a GP. It is not restricted to finding GPs, as there are issues with post offices, schools and a range of services leaving rural communities. At the same time, people who are trying to develop these communities and sustain them by allowing families to live and make their homes there are being frustrated, in many cases, by restrictive development plans that arise with input from a Department that does not understand the community.

The Minister of State is from an urban area but the need of a community is the same in an urban area as in a rural area. He was involved with a very high-profile planning issue regarding the proposed incinerator, and he can understand what communities feel. In rural areas, one cannot get permission for a family home but a semi-State company can land a few turbines beside a house. A semi-State company can build forestry around communities and plough forest roads but when a family wishes to build a house, it is put through the hoops. As a result of the new building regulations from last year, people may be forced to do archaeological reports and a range of actions before one even begins building. By the time a family gets an agent, planning advice and all the reports, it could be spending up to between €20,000 and €25,000 before a bit of concrete goes into the ground. Nobody has that any more, and why are we looking for it? Why are we taking the trust that we have in our local authorities away by implementing regulations and constraining our local authorities?

I know there is a debate within certain circles about the cost of providing services to rural areas, and if permission is granted, services are required. That is part of the issue. We should have a system where we would not have to wait until 2020 to get broadband to the furthest reaches of the country. I accept we were in government at the time but we should have decided ten years ago that it would have been installed. We should decide now that new technologies that will be essential for living will be a major part of developing communities. Technology and community do not have to be in conflict all the time, and technology can sustain and encourage communities. Broadband Internet and 4G technology has made it possible for people to work from home while they have a job based in this city; they can work from County Mayo or any rural county. These people are kept in the community, which benefits from the value of family, and the person's enthusiasm can be harnessed.

There has been a tendency to forget the seriousness of the tribunal reports, including their conclusions. The publication of those reports was a dark day for this House and appropriate action was taken. It was a darker day for the communities and the people now living in them. They are going without services that were never built and sub-standard housing. I know the pyrite scheme, although linked to the building boom rather than bad planning, is an example of an attempt to deal with this issue. Perhaps the Minister of State's Department of Social Protection could consider schemes or community support measures to help develop communities. The residents of the estates that are away from everywhere could partake in a community audit in order to develop services, perhaps using unemployed residents within the estates who may be unemployed but who may have the requisite skills to help. There could be a community investment fund for everybody's individual community. There is definitely something in this, particularly with regard to services. We are often approached to help deal with problems of unfinished lights, paths and roads. I remember a case some years ago when we were able to get the council to return a bond to us and the people in the estate who were in various trades were able to come together on a co-operative basis and complete the services for a fraction of what it would normally have cost. If that kind of operation could be put in place around the country, we could start bringing facilities and standards up to scratch and investing in the communities that are victims of a bad planning process.

It is very important that we acknowledge the changes that have happened, as noted by the Minister, Deputy Kelly, earlier. We should acknowledge that the transparency of the planning system is far more robust now than it ever has been. We need to ensure that the recommendations of the final report of the tribunal is implemented in full. I am intrigued by the notion that the Minister has two planning Bills for this Dáil session, which has two months to go. Let us not rush this. We must bring in the regulator - that is important - and the Government has had four years to do it. I get the sense that much legislation will be rushed through in the next few weeks, which will lead to mistakes being made. We should remember that with planning legislation, a word or phrase inserted as an amendment will have a direct impact on somebody's life in a way that some other legislation we produce here does not. When the building regulations now choking home building, and specifically single house building, around the country were discussed, some people on this side of the House tried to point out the difficulties, including the cost. However, people did not realise the extent of what is now happening.

Those building regulations have much to answer for, particularly if people are wondering why house building is so slow. They are choking the process and adding enormous expense to people at the most expensive time of their lives. Let us not rush the next phase of planning legislation. We must ensure it can be properly debated in the House. This time of the year is guillotine season and I worry that when we return after the by-election and referendum, legislation will appear and be guillotined. I ask the Minister of State to give a commitment when wrapping up tomorrow night that given the poor record of planning, we will not guillotine planning legislation and the provisions to improve it. We must ensure that when we proceed with an independent regulator, we should do so in the spirit proposed and with regard to what people believe. The independent regulator must be accountable to somebody as well, and the problem is we have set up so many regulators who are accountable to nobody. There must be accountability for this regulator in particular.

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