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

It would be more up-front if the Minister of State said the Government was not accepting the core recommendation of the Mahon tribunal report. I refer to the quote I read. Judge Mahon talked about an over-centralisation of power in the hands of the Minister and the Department. Perhaps I do not understand this well. Will the Minister of State outline where in the legislation there is an attempt to reverse that over-centralisation? If there is no attempt to do so, the Minister of State is not being consistent with the letter or spirit of the Mahon tribunal report. The judge referred to the ability to give direction to planning authorities and regional assemblies to be entrusted with the OPR. It is not that an opinion could be given; the power to give direction was a central recommendation. Again, this is not provided for in the Bill, unless I am misreading it and I am happy to be corrected if I have it wrong. If the OPR is not being allowed to give that direction, the Minister of State is not being consistent with this key recommendation.

I acknowledge that this is a technical Bill and that it has, unfortunately, through no fault of any Member, had a sporadic history as it has passed through the House, but the corruption at the heart of the Mahon tribunal had huge consequences for individual communities, the economy and our society overall. It brought our planning and political systems into enormous disrepute. For example, in my constituency it led to the shift of the town centre between Lucan and Clondalkin from Clonburris to an edge of town retail shopping complex which was not in the interests of, or needed by, the local community. That continues to have significant consequences for people to this day. The Minister of State cannot, on the one hand, say this is consistent with the Mahon tribunal report recommendation and, on the other, that the OPR will not be given powers, particularly powers to direct.

I also do not accept that allowing a Minister to explain through written or oral replies to parliamentary questions why he or she is not acting on recommendations is sufficient, nor did Mr. Justice Mahon, which is why he did not recommend it. The Minister of State is correct that if a matter is criminal in nature, it should be investigated by the Garda.

However, a regulator would have a level of planning expertise that would allow it to undertake investigations and then, if there is a matter to be furthered by criminal investigation, the regulator can hand that over to the Garda for it to conduct, as is very often the case in many other statutory agencies. I do not accept the Minister of State's defence of the Bill. I was not expecting him to support my amendments but it is important that people listening to this debate understand this is not what the Mahon report recommended. This is not an independent planning regulator and this will not improve our planning system sufficiently so that people can have confidence that such planning irregularities and corruption will be less likely to occur in the future.

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