Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this motion which is very timely, given what we saw last night on RTE in the willingness of a small number of public representatives to effectively prostitute themselves to random developers to gain a few pounds sterling, which seems to be their currency of choice.

The motion states that the Government has failed to act on all the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal. This means we do not have greater protection against corruption on the part of elected representatives of the type that led to the Mahon and Flood tribunals being established in the first place. It would appear there are still a small number of chancers willing to take advantage of their position of trust.

One of the key recommendations of the Mahon report was the establishment of the office of an independent planning regulator and that has simply not been done. The published heads of a bill containing provisions for a planning regulator do not fulfil the recommendation that the office be truly independent. It is doubtful whether the bill will even come before the House prior to the election. That is why I published a Bill during the summer which specifically undertakes to establish an independent planning regulator and I will be moving that Bill in the next few days. The Taoiseach said he would take on board what we said and I hope he does. The difference between what the Government is proposing and what we are proposing is that the planning regulator would be appointed by the Public Appointments Service and not by the Minister. It would have the powers to investigate and give directions to local and regional authorities and it would enable actions to be brought to recover and enforce costs and any charge, as well as the power to bring prosecutions. I brought forward other provisions some seven or eight months ago but these are three key provisions in my Bill.

A regulator such as I propose is required to ensure we no longer have the secrecy that surrounds planning in this State. That is not to suggest that most planning decisions or zonings are suspect or involve corruption.

However, we do not have the necessary transparency or the ability to investigate contentious decisions which leave matters in doubt. That doubt will always remain. This particularly applies to situations such as the Corrib gas pipeline in Mayo and the proposed industrial wind turbines in the midlands, about which there is a huge level of public distrust. In the case of the wind farm in Cullenagh, County Laois, for example, the An Bord Pleanála inspector recommended against it but the members of An Bord Pleanála ignored the inspector's findings. That is the reason Sinn Féin published legislation on wind farms which would not allow local development plans to be superseded by so-called critical infrastructure legislation.

We must restore local democracy, although what we saw on the television last night does not help in that. However, we must overcome that and ensure that the people elected at local level are accountable and that their decisions carry weight. The Minister, Deputy Kelly, will also be aware of the serious allegations regarding planning decisions in several counties. Some of them concern Wicklow County Council and claims regarding rezoning. This has led to claims that files were removed from the Minister's office. I am aware that an investigation of all of this was carried out and we have been promised a report on it on a number of occasions. Perhaps the Minister will take the opportunity tomorrow night to inform us about the progress of that inquiry. There are also inquiries under way into planning in Dublin, Cork, Carlow, Galway and Donegal. Again, we have been assured at various stages that reports on these will be brought forward. Given the fact that the House is likely to sit for only a short number of weeks after Christmas before the election, I call on the Minister and the Government to bring forward any reports they have and to expedite the reports from those inquiries so we can examine their contents.

Sinn Féin commends the Deputies on tabling this important motion. It is important to state that the vast majority of public representatives at local and national level are not corrupt. There are a few people who will engage in corrupt practices, as we have seen. We have also seen the best public service being given by local authority members. Unfortunately, the actions of a few cast a shadow over that. Hopefully, we can stamp it out and this motion certainly puts forward concrete proposals for doing that.

See this speech in context