Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the chance, during the discussion on these amendments, to consider the real heart of this Bill and where it has come from, namely, the Mahon tribunal, as Deputy Wallace pointed out. That tribunal was not without its flaws. It is interesting to note, many years later, that many of the findings against individuals had to be withdrawn because the process itself was flawed. That should be a lesson for us in terms of tribunals and inquiries and how we do our work. However, the central argument in the recommendations about the need for independent planning regulations still stands true.

We discussed the very interesting question on Committee Stage as to whether, in the end, it should be the political or administrative arm that has final control. That is a really fine line equation because in the Mahon tribunal process, while some people may have been wrongly accused, others got away lightly. I refer to both officials and politicians who were found to be corrupt but who could not be pursued because of the flaws in the process. Prior to and during the Celtic tiger period, Mr. Frank McDonald often said that the definition of sustainable development in Ireland was development that had to be sustained. I have seen officials pushing inappropriate development as much as anyone else. There is no lock-down guarantee that if we hand it over to officialdom that we will necessarily get a better outcome. On the other hand, we have seen various Ministers for the Environment over time who would not necessarily hold views akin to my own. I will not go back through the list of characters. In a later amendment I pick up on the actions of the last Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, who introduced highly inappropriate planning regulatory changes relating to apartment sizes, building energy efficiency standards, north facing aspects and so on. The former Minister provides an example of political control that did not lead to good planning. It is a very fine line and a very interesting and worthy issue for consideration.

The core point made by Deputy Wallace with regard to the Mahon tribunal recommendations is that we need to get away from our overly centralised system. We also need to provide really strong direction at local and regional level for certain imperatives around real sustainability, air quality, flood protection, carbon reduction and reducing transport times to be a part of our planning system. It is very important that some of the other recommendations of the Mahon tribunal which have not been implemented to date are actually implemented if the approach in this Bill is to work. The regional structures we have at the moment, for example, are totally inappropriate. The Mahon report correctly recommends directly elected regional representation which we do not have here. In fact, we have a completely bizarre non-strategic regional structure. We are trying to adapt a planning regulatory system onto a regional system that is cuckoo, that goes from Louth to Louisburgh on one side and Bray to Ballybunnion on the other. Deputy O'Dowd also made the very good point that our planning structures around local government are completely mad. The absence of a town council for Drogheda is just one example of this. There are innumerable other districts which do not have district councils. We cannot transfer the responsibility back out or have a planning regulator regulating a system which does not have the proper planning structures in place, starting with things like a town council in Drogheda town.

We still have a planning system that is completely dominated by managers. In this debate about whether it should be political or managerial control in the end, I am nervous about an unelected regional authority system where the managers hold all of the sway. In the context of city and other councils of which I have experience, where the managers had complete control, I am slightly nervous about handing over yet more power to an official system in this equation.

In terms of dealing with corruption, we have done some good work; it is not all bad. We have introduced changes to the rules on political donations and lobbying, for example. More controls have been put into the system. During my time in government, we introduced an 80% tax to deal with the profits on zoned land, which was one of the core reasons for the corruption that became widespread in our planning system but the last Government got rid of it, arguing that there was no money coming in from it but that was at the height of the recession. The tax was there for when we started to lift again, which is where we are now. Such a tax might be one of the ways to get those large multinational companies to which Deputy Wallace referred to stop hoarding land for profit speculation. It could have an incentive effect. Had we, as the IMF recommended, also been quicker to introduce our vacant site levy, we might not have this stalled housing system.

Answering the question as to whether the regulatory system should be ministerial or administrative also requires us to consider the other elements in the planning process that must be put in place. If we are to get the national planning framework right then we must, as Deputy Wallace argued, bring power out of Dublin and down into communities. However, for that to work, the national planning framework has to throw responsibility to the regions, cities and towns and get them to come back with their own planning and development ideas, rather than the process being top down. We need district councils and five or six proper regional authorities for that to work and real powers for local, democratically elected officials. In those circumstances, I would absolutely favour a regulatory management system but I am nervous about giving over powers to councils where the managers are still in charge, particularly when we have not really learned the lessons of the property bubble and the lack of truly sustainable development. We need this legislation but we also need a hell of a lot more, particularly around our democratic structures at local and regional level.

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