Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

People have to realise that the power is not given to a Minister but to this House to scrutinise a decision of the Minister. Members come in here not just to comment or raise issues, and they do a great job of raising many issues, but politicians have to also make decisions. That is what democracy is about. There are many commentators in the media every day of the week but politicians go into a council chamber or come into this House to make decisions. I do not believe we should give every decision away to some other body that is not accountable to this House, even though this House is elected. The Deputy is making a mistake. We strongly believe that. I have come through the planning process, like most of the Deputies here, since I started in politics over 20 years ago and it has changed immensely. It is very transparent in every decision that is made. I would trust more of our politicians' ability to make decisions. More effort is made to educate politicians about planning matters but a local authority cannot make a decision about a zoning or planning matter without proper scrutiny and without explaining to all who want to watch or listen why the decision is being made. The county manager is there. Reports have to be answered for. Planners are involved. It is not the way it was when I started in politics, when it was wrong. My first vote on a development plan was "No", against everybody else. Nobody even cared or asked about it because it was not scrutinised. That has changed and there is proper scrutiny, which is right. We are saying here that the Minister cannot make decisions without scrutiny and has to explain to this House why he or she is not taking the advice of the regulator. That is the way it should be. We will not be accepting the amendment. I am sorry about that but that is the very strong view in our Department.

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