James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In considering the planning framework, it is important we set realistic expectations in terms of what a planning framework should look like. Too often, I have seen in local area plans a situation where much is promised and little is delivered. The difficulty seems to be that the very nature of a planning framework is aspirational and is centred on land use objectives and possibilities for particular areas. However, the missing link, which is delivery, capital and funding, is very often missing from the equation. This can create a misconception for users of that information, in particular the general public, when they begin to review plans - I will use the example of a local area plan hierarchy as it is the one I am most familiar with. This can create false expectations when people view a plan, and these have often been created by a local authority that has set out to speculate as to what could happen at a particular site or building, were a number of things to happen.

A planner will colour in a map with a particular colour and an artist's impression can then be created of a particular facility. Perhaps a farmer's land may be coloured as an amenity and open space, which then lends itself to an artist's impression of a sports field with a campus, facilities, leisure hall, gym, car park, access roads and all sorts of wonderful things around it. In one extreme example in the town of Kilcock, which went through a local area plan in the past two years - the Minister of State will be familiar with it as it is across the water from Meath - all that is missing is the palm trees. The county council planners drew up an impression of the town square and what it would look like when remodelled under the local area plan. A very impressive, futuristic and desirable scene was created, but it bore no resemblance to reality because, in order for that fantastic plaza to be developed, with or without palm trees, ownership of it had to cede to the public purse or to anybody who was willing to do something with it. The plot had to be bought and sold, it had to be capitalised and it had to receive planning permission and funding, before going ahead to completion in order to be used. There are many steps in a planning framework which may never be realised.

The difficulty is that this leads to a sense of false expectations among the community. It also leads to gaps in the plans which mean we end up with brownfield sites, unutilised greenfield sites and worse situations such as derelict buildings. In the plan, these might have made sense because, if the plan came to pass, these would no longer be vacant sites but, unfortunately, they are often vacant without that follow-through and development.

At a higher level, in the national planning framework we are discussing today, one can see a similar approach at regional level. I represent Kildare North and I have heard speakers today talk about Meath, Wicklow and Louth, which are commuter belt counties and have seen extreme volumes of growth in the past 15 to 20 years. However, the population increase has not been matched by an increase in facilities, amenities and public and private transport links. Educational and health care facilities are not in place and there is a lack of employment opportunities. These are the gaps we need to begin filling in a national planning framework at regional level in order to take this step up from the local area plans.

Kildare North has seen high population growth. The town I live in, Sallins, has grown from 500 people in the 1999 census to 5,000 in the most recent census, a 1,000% increase, and at one stage it was labelled the fastest growing town in Europe. This has happened without any amenities being added, such as additional playing fields. Thankfully, the rail infrastructure has begun to creep back into gear and has improved greatly, but there is still a long way to go and we are again seeing the problem of overloaded trains and buses, and of services being inadequate to cater for the demand, given current capacity. Amenities have been an issue for a long time. On housing, we have come from a situation of having a surplus to having a massive deficit, as we are all now well aware, yet we have done nothing in the meantime to fill the amenity gaps in those spaces. We now have a very real need for multiples of housing units to be delivered but let us hope that, this time, we do not make the mistake of the past, which was to deliver them in isolation, without the services, infrastructure and amenities to support them.

There is a possibility for people to live in regional areas in a distributed way and the concept of the greater Dublin area is one that can be pursued in terms of the commuter counties being part of that. The fundamental concept of having people living in the commuter counties and working in Dublin is a viable one, but it is a difficult one at present because of the lack of public transport linkage, educational infrastructure and other amenities. If we can fill those gaps, it is an answer to the housing crisis, among other things, because it would make it possible, attractive and feasible for people to live in farther-flung places yet enjoy access to work, in order to further their careers, and access to education. In this way, it becomes an enabler because people are able to attend universities a little further from home, without having to break the bank to do so, if they can commute to access educational institutions.

This would also see social capital and social connections beginning to be forged. If somebody is originally from north Dublin and ends up living in south Kildare, and there is extended family distributed across a number of counties, decent public transport connections and a decent planning framework will allow relatively straightforward movement between the areas. People can visit each other and stay in touch, and the distance is not as amplified as it might sometimes be. This is often the case with cities internationally, where people have extended family and friends. On the Continent, it is not unusual to commute to a party or visit friends for dinner even if they live 90 minutes away, because people hop on a train and it is a pretty straightforward journey. That would be quite unusual here and people would generally have to stay overnight, so it is less done. The idea of distributed population has worked very successfully in other areas but we have not grasped it here. Therefore, we still have the problems of gridlock and social mismatch, whereby people are cut off from their extended family. This also applies to many other structures, for example, to child care, education and social bonds, inclusivity and the feeling of belonging and making a home from home in a new commuter belt location, which often may not be where people started out.

These are some of the challenges we have to face when we sit down to look at the national planning framework. While I am most familiar with regional and local planning, I have seen too often in the past these mistakes being made and repeated. Making a mistake once is bad, but making it twice is worse. I hope the national planning framework will succeed. I hope it will consider employment opportunities around the country and in the regions, as well as in the centre. While we acknowledge that the centre is going to remain at the hub of the majority of activity, which is probably realistic in the medium term, if we can put the connections into services in order to get people in and out of the centre, to plan for that and, at the same time, to deliver quality of life amenities, health care, education, sporting opportunities and all of those vital surrounding factors where people are living today, that will provide the basis for a successful framework. I very much hope that is where the plan will turn out to be.

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