Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State began by saying that the Government does not propose to transfer functions from the Minister to the planning regulator. This means that recommendation 1.14 from the Mahon tribunal report is not being supported by the Government. That proposition is being rejected. At least we know that and it makes matters clear.

I am amazed at the degree to which the Minister of State is confused about the functions of a planning regulator. Nobody is suggesting that the Government of the day or the legislators in the Oireachtas should cede any responsibility for our functions to a regulator. Our job is to legislate. The Government's job is to direct policy and the job of local authorities and other public service providers is to deliver services. That is what we are here for. An independent regulator comes into play when somebody does something wrong, be it a Minister, officials in local or central government, or local authority councillors, and its job is to investigate and make an intervention to correct the wrongdoing. Therefore, the regulator must be separate from legislators and service providers.

I respectfully disagree with Deputy Jan O'Sullivan. There is no value in having a regulator unless it has independent power to intervene and correct breaches of legislation or policy. This does not mean we would transfer any responsibility for policy or legislation to the regulator. The regulator's job is to investigate and to correct, where necessary. Part of the problem - we will come to this when we deal with my later amendments, but it is relevant to the amendments currently under discussion - is what happens if, potentially, the Minister or senior Government officials are involved? The Minister of State is right in what he said in that there has been a huge change in culture from the bad days of the 1980s and 1990s. However, that is not a reason to fail to ensure that we have in place, as recommended by the Mahon report, the best possible checks and balances.

The better the checks and balances, the better the protection for good civil servants and politicians. The Minister of State speaks about balance but there is none; one either has the power to intervene with the regulator, which is required according to the Mahon report, or the power remains within the political system, which failed in the past and may well fail in future. The Minister of State has this all wrong. Not unlike with the Policing Authority, we will return to this at a future date when, just as with that body, this proposed body will prove to be ineffective.

See this speech in context