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

May I begin by expressing a certain degree of frustration? We have had to adjourn the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government for half an hour to give our statements in the Chamber. While that is not the fault of anyone currently in the room, it means that those of use who are on that committee and involved in this particular debate are put in an awkward position. We will not be able to listen to the contributions of other Members, despite the fact that we would benefit from them. I will raise that matter with the Business Committee. I am also disappointed that the Minister has not made the time to remain. I mean no disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy John Paul Phelan but, given the huge importance of the national planning framework and of real dialogue between all the different participants in this debate, I would have expected the Minister to stay for at least the first hour of the discussion. I know that the officials are here. They are probably more important than the Minister in terms of capturing the detail of this, but it is still something which needs to be commented on.

The planning framework is a hugely important document. I welcome that the process is under way and that it is being brought through the Oireachtas and put on a statutory footing. I have genuine concerns about the extent of local community and local authority buy-in to the process up to this point. I know there has been a large number of meetings in local areas, however a significant number of those were poorly attended. Some 700 submissions to a document of this importance, which covers the entire island in many respects, is not an indication of success. It shows the level of disengagement out there.

It is also important to note that all of that consultation was at the pre-draft stage. It is really when we see the draft, the document in front of us, that we get into the meat of whether this is being done in the correct way. Yet we are only being given just over six weeks - from 26 September when the draft was published up to Friday week - to make submissions and there will be no supplementary consultation with local authorities or local communities and stakeholders during that period. That is probably when the consultation would have been most important. I strongly urge the Government to reconsider that approach and to consider extending the deadline, not to facilitate submissions from Members because we can complete them within the deadline, but to go back out and engage with stakeholders and communities in order to ensure the maximum level of participation.

While intending no disrespect to the officials who are working very hard to meet the Government's deadlines, I share many of Deputy Pat Casey's concerns. There is a lot of text surrounding the policy objectives, but that text is just context. A lot of it is aspirational and vague. The meat of this document is really the 69 or more policy objectives. Across most of those, very few firm targets are given and there is very little indication of how delivery will take place. I will go through some of those concerns.

If one looks at policy objective 1a, according to this plan almost half of the population growth will be concentrated on the eastern and midland region. Even though approximately half of that half, or a quarter overall, will be in Dublin, we know that the bulk of that 500,000 people will be in Dublin and the commuter belt. That will put huge strain on the existing infrastructure in those areas. It seems to be a scaling down of the ambition previously indicated by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, to have genuinely balanced regional development. While Dublin is only meant to be taking approximately 250,000 people, the greater Dublin and commuter belt area will probably take approximately 500,000 people, with all of the consequences that will have for Dublin, for the other cities, and for the issues around rural regeneration.

If one looks at policy objective 2b, 50% of the growth is intended to happen in five cities. I welcome the fact that we are no longer talking about second tier cities. There was always a fear that there would be a battle between Cork and Limerick as to which would get priority. It is a good thing that is not there and that a different approach is being taken. I am not saying that the detail for each of the cities other than Dublin is right yet, but it is a more balanced approach. Derry and Belfast, however, are not included. We cannot seriously think about population growth and spatial planning, particularly in terms of the regeneration of the north west, if we are completely blind in that section of the document to the other two major cities on the island. We need to be much more ambitious about creating stronger counterbalances to the growth of the Dublin and greater Dublin region. Part of that needs to include rethinking those targets.

I am also unsure of policy objectives 13 through to 17b in terms of halting rural decline and exactly how that is meant to transpire. Some of those policy objectives are among the most ambiguous and vague and it is not clear how they will work out. In respect of jobs, there is a set of targets for jobs in the regions. I have two concerns about those targets. First, they say nothing about the existing imbalance in the distribution of jobs within those regions. For example, while the plan talks about several hundred thousand jobs in one region, they may all continue to go to the areas within that region which are already disproportionately served and the regional inequality in terms of distribution of jobs may be continued, as will the consequences of economic deprivation.

On chapter 5, which is about communities, policy objective 25 involves promoting sustainable community development and supporting community development. I laughed when I read this. Again, I mean no disrespect to the planning officials. This is not their fault. We have seen the decimation of the funding and the independence of the community development sector and community based organisations. There is no sign that any of that funding will be restored. In fact, the infrastructure which would be used to develop that policy objective is increasingly not there. Again, that is not necessarily an issue for the officials in the room at the moment, but it is an issue for the Department.

Likewise policy objective 26 on health, policy objective 27 on water and policy objective 28 on public transport are incredibly vague. There is no notion of phasing, so there could be significant population growth but there would not necessarily be any requirement, as there would be in a strategic development zone plane, for population growth only to proceed in tandem with very clear targets for the provision of crucial infrastructure. Deputy Casey mentioned some roads and water infrastructure in his constituency. We could all mention similar examples of where the existing infrastructure services are not adequate for the populations in the area. How can we be guaranteed that, with an increase in population, those things will not get worse?

I have made this point on a number of occasions and I will make it again today: this document is completely blind to the spatial dimension of disadvantage and inequality. That information is there in the small area statistics from the census. It should be mapped in the document and we should see very clear how a spatial plan gears State agencies and State bodies towards decisions which would tackle the spatial dimensions associated with economic disadvantage.

I have huge concerns about the section on housing. There are some things which make sense, for example, the focus on trying to build up housing supply within existing urban and town areas.

Policy objective 35, to reduce vacancy rates from 9% to 5% by 2040, is a reduction of 0.1% a year over the course of the plan or 4% over 23 years. That is nowhere near ambitious enough. Likewise, policy 38 on improving the evidence base for planning is to be welcomed. This is not a dig at the Minister of State's two officials but, given the difficulties the Department is having in getting figures right for house completions and homelessness numbers, if it cannot do the stuff it is currently doing right how can it convince us that these are the things which will change?

Another major problem is the North. There is a chapter entitled "Ireland in the EU". There is no mention of the EU in the eight recommendations in the section. It is all about the North, and there is only one reference to the island. It should be called what it is, namely, the all-Ireland dimension to this plan. Across the seven objectives specific to the North there is, yet again, a lot of vagueness.

Unfortunately, I do not have time to talk about chapters four, six and eight. They are very important and my party colleagues will deal with them in terms of the environment, Ireland's marine and rural development.

A lot has to change in terms of the substance of the policy objectives in this document before Sinn Féin can support it. We will table detailed amendments next Friday, suggesting changes to the text. They will be about making the policy objectives firmer and more specific and ambitious. We also want to introduce a greater element of phasing in terms of what is permissible as one goes through the plan.

I support Deputy Casey's argument about the capital plan. The idea that we could agree a national planning framework without having seen the capital plan seems remiss. I know it is not within the control of the Department, but it is very important.

The document has to have a much stronger all-Ireland dimension. It should not view the North as simply a neighbour, but rather a central part of any planning framework which considers the island as a whole, in particular for Border communities in the north west. I do not think the word "Brexit" is mentioned once in any of the objectives, despite the fact that it is going to have a ten to 15-year impact, in particular on Border communities. Objectives to counteract those negative impacts from a planning point of view need to be in place.

I wish to emphasise once again that socioeconomic disadvantage has a spatial dimension. It can be mapped. Every single decision taken in the context of this plan will reinforce or tackle and challenge the spatial dimension of socioeconomic disadvantage. If it is not in the final draft, it will be one of the deal breakers for Sinn Féin in terms of our ability to support the plan.

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