Clare Daly (Dublin Fingal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is incredibly difficult because there are 29 amendments in this grouping. If they were not grouped, we would be getting seven minutes on each of them. It is really hard to put all of them together and deal with them in any way comprehensively.

The Bill is being put in place because we are supposed to be implementing the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal. As Deputy Wallace said, instead of addressing one of Judge Mahon's key concerns, which was the over-centralisation of power in the hands of the Minister, what this Bill is doing is not only not checking that power, but actually intensifying the concentration of power in the Minister's hands. As Deputy Wallace said, the judge advocated for the establishment of an independent planning regulator. This Bill outlines a regulator that has its hands bound and that has not been given all of the necessary powers to play a truly independent role.

Of particular concern is the fact, as identified in the regulatory impact assessment published by the Department in regard to the Planning and Development (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2015, that the wide powers given to the Minister under the 2000 Act have not been curtailed. The tribunal, let us remember, recommended that those powers held by the Minister around regional planning guidelines, development plans and presumably local area plans should transfer in full to a new independent planning regulator. This Bill does not do that. That is what this group of amendments seeks to do in one way or another in order to give the planning regulator the teeth to be able to do the job that Judge Mahon felt that the regulator should do to avoid the catastrophic consequences of the bad planning that took place in the past.

We had our first national spatial strategy in 2002. It was a great idea in theory. However, due to its flexibility and weakness and due to the 2002 planning Act brought in shortly afterwards, it became a cog in what was afterwards called the growth machine, by which sustainable planning was thrown out the door in return for massive rezonings and massive building at all costs without any adequate oversight. The legacy of that is the ghost estates, the people living in crumbling housing developments miles from public transport services who are reliant on cars, traffic in urban areas and all the rest of the consequences that we are now dealing with.

Given the weakness and flexibility of the national spatial strategy, which actually became subordinate to political and economic interests, the proposed sections 31S(1)(a) and (b) of the principal Act are of very serious concern to us. That is why we have tabled amendment No. 16. Those paragraphs bind the office of the planning regulator in performing its functions to have regard to the policies and objectives, "for the time being of the Government", which means the political whim of Government. In actual fact, what it should be taking account of is exactly the list of things that Deputy Ryan listed in his amendment, which would make far more appropriate issues for the regulator to have regard to, such as reducing carbon emissions, improving air quality, EU floods directives and so on. That is what the regulator should be obliged to deal with rather than the political pet projects of the day.

In the provisions in section 31AM around the local development plans, which we are amending in our amendments Nos. 33 to 36, inclusive, what the Government is doing is giving the regulator the power to shake its head. Big deal. The regulator will be able to tut tut and say that it is not really sure about this or that. The Minister would simply be able to respond by saying, "Are you not? Tough. What are you going to do about it? It is my call at the end of the day." On Committee Stage, the Minister said that just because there is a regulator does not mean that we are going to end corruption and that it would be better to have a Minister in charge who is at least accountable to the people at the end of the day. He said he was open to looking at this. I do not think anybody is naive enough to think that just because it is a planning regulator and not a politician that it immediately removes any sort of threat or influence of corruption. That would be utterly ridiculous. However, an independent body armed with teeth has been proven to be a far better measure of that than any other alternative. That is what we are trying to do in this set of amendments.

The sorry mess of the 2000s that we are now in was down to growth at any cost and down to certain elements of society enriching themselves at any cost. The political powers that be did not only not stop them, but actually put fuel on the fire because of the inordinate influence of that sector of society on the economy. In that sense, a Minister would be more susceptible than an independent regulator. What we are trying to do is put somebody in place who would challenge the political ideology of neoliberalism, which is really about growth at all costs and to hell with the consequence. Those are precisely the types of policies that have resulted in homelessness, spiralling house prices, the driving up of rents and so on. As we have not got the checks in this legislation, what should be a progressive Bill is not really fit for purpose.

On Second Stage, the Minister talked about Rebuilding Ireland and the fundamental legislative reforms that are necessary. Over the past year or so, there has been an obsessive insistence on removing imaginary roadblocks in the planning process to speed up development. That is the name of the game. However, that is actually not the problem. At the time Rebuilding Ireland was published, permission was in place for 27,000 shovel-ready homes in Dublin alone. Just 4,809 of those units, or 18%, actually went under construction. According to the audit carried out by the Department in 2010, there was a total of more than 3,300 ha of undeveloped residentially-zoned land within the four Dublin local authorities.

At conservative levels, it is enough to build well over 100,000 houses. Zoned land is not the problem. They are probably shovel-ready, but they are not being built. They are there, and many of them have planning approval, but they are not being built. We do not need fast-track planning. It is not a necessity. We need to unlock some of those things by the measures precisely outlined by Deputy Wallace earlier.

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