Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Eamon Ryan made a good point that this is about striking a balance. One could come down on either side of the argument in that regard. In this instance, I am coming down on the side of the Minister of State. Ultimately, we are elected to represent the people and we should take responsibility. We cannot constantly say that politicians are so bad that they cannot take responsibility for decisions, but they must do so on the basis of objective evidence. There is a huge amount of objective evidence that I presume the office of the planning regulator will be required to make public and it is already there in the hierarchy of plans.

When I was Minister of State with responsibility for planning, I issued a number of directives to local authorities in respect of instances where local government councillors were proposing to turn around their own area and county plans in order, for example, to build on flood plains or to construct big developments around the edges of urban areas to the neglect of the core. I issued those directives because, on the basis of objective proper planning, the development proposals to which I refer were wrong. Politicians can make incorrect decisions and so can administrators. That is precisely what led to the establishment of the Mahon tribunal: brown envelopes were being handed out; there was a total lack of transparency; councillors and planners, in conjunction with developers, were making decisions for their own benefit; and the system was corrupt. What we need is a system which ensures that responsibility is taken on the basis of objective facts and which facilitates the correct decisions being made. Ultimately, it is right that a Minister has to respond to the elected representatives in this House. If the Minister is doing something different from what the office of the planning regulator says should be done, he or she will be obliged to answer for that publicly.

The establishment of the Health Service Executive, HSE, was a terrible mistake. We often complain that we cannot hold certain bodies to account. We are elected representatives and it is about time we took responsibility on that basis. One of the problems with the political system in Ireland is that we are loath to take responsibility. Sometimes we have to make decisions that are not popular locally. One of the problems with planning in the past was that local politicians had too much power, were not obliged to explain their actions and were able to make decisions behind closed doors. Transparency is a big factor and Deputy O'Dowd referred to that. If matters are out in the open, people can decide. In this case, however, it is a question of balance and it is correct that the Minister is the ultimate person who will be answerable. It would be very unusual if a Minister were to decide to go against what is proposed by the office of the planning regulator. If, however, he or she does that, he or she will be accountable for doing so. He or she will have to account for his or her actions in the public, open and democratic forum of the Houses of the Oireachtas to which we are elected to represent the people. It is about time we grew up in regard to planning.

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