Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The process to initiate a national planning framework began three years ago, we are told, and culminated last Friday. It was wrong of the Government to combine its publication with that of the national development plan and doubly wrong to term the combination Ireland 2040. Such a decision seeks to create, and to some extent has succeeded in creating, some confusion among the electorate and does not do justice to either document. Furthermore, the Dáil should be dealing with the two documents separately. The Government undoubtedly will say that the process in which we are engaged was agreed by the Business Committee but I am sure neither the Business Committee nor any member thereof was to know or be privy to what unfolded last Friday. I will make a statement on the national planning framework. I would rather it were not a statement; I would rather it were a debate. I would rather if the Government were answerable to the Dáil on the issue and the various questions that arise following its publication but again, I contend the Business Committee was taken for a ride.

The national planning framework replaces, or should be an improvement upon, the delivery of a concept first initiated and recorded in the form of the national spatial strategy in 2002. Its potential within that was driven in the main by the prioritisation of the national primary road network and its motorways together with the expansion of Dublin Airport, which, among other capital infrastructure and projects, served Ireland well and meant we were in a strong position to take advantage of the upturn following the crash. Unfortunately, Phil Hogan scrapped the national spatial strategy in 2012. I say "unfortunately" because it has not been strengthened or replaced since. This decision showed a disregard for national planning processes and has created regional and local uncertainty ever since. Fine Gael has had six years to replace it, and despite that length of time, that space, its replacement was binned a few short months ago and a SWAT team put in place to produce Friday's publication. As I said, Friday's publication was then intertwined with a national development plan. This reduced its impact and the ability of this House to debate it separately, which I think is necessary.

A national planning framework is a major planning blueprint for the future development of the country. Its concept, we were told, would take politics out of the planning process and out of any plan that might emanate from it. It was a major initiative, not necessarily to stifle Dublin's growth but to counterbalance its development and to bring the cities into play. We acknowledge, accept, and agree with this concept. To achieve this, the plan sought to direct and improve the capacity of other cities and build on their critical mass in order for them to extend or exaggerate the natural pull on their regions, which they should drive. Anyone would expect that when one seeks to achieve this, it would not be at the expense or neglect of rural Ireland or other regions which do not have that natural critical mass in a city within its region. However, this is exactly what was done, and this was plainly evident in the draft document that was produced. That is what Fine Gael does: Fine Gael tells people what is best for them.

We remember the last election when Fine Gael told the regions they were in the midst of a recovery. It does not do leg ups, it does leave behinds. In this instance, thankfully, it was not let do so. The meaningless preparation and the fruitless consultation yielded a worthless document, support for which did not go beyond the politburo of the Fine Gael Cabinet members. The backlash from Opposition parties, stakeholders and the public was palpable and real. Despite being six years in the making and despite, one would have thought, having learned and improved upon the national spatial strategy, the Government was wholly inadequate in what it produced and it failed to meet the response necessary to tap into the mood of the regions. That was proved beyond doubt by the vehemence of the backlash.

I made a submission on behalf of Fianna Fáil in response to representations from my parliamentary colleagues, councillors, members of our party and many constituents. It specifically and plainly laid out the deficiencies and failings we saw in the plan. To be fair, some of them have been responded to adequately but more of them have not, hence the need, I would have thought and hoped, for a more honest and open debate on this issue rather than the statements that have been made.

With regard to fostering economic growth, we sought more broadly based regional and rural economic growth, and this has been addressed in some shape. The Minister mentioned the independent planning regulator. This is not necessarily a child of this process, but rather the planning tribunals, but we are glad to see legislation is forthcoming and it is mentioned in the planning and development Bill going through the Houses.

We mentioned the fact there did not appear to be an all-island approach, and very little mention, if any, of Brexit. We are glad to see this has been addressed and there is cognisance of it. We did not think the Minister went far enough on climate change and we see now in the planning framework there have been improvements in this area. The Minister mentioned the specific targeting of brownfield development in towns and cities, and I welcome the commitment in this regard. The implementation, monitoring and reviewing of plans over the course of its lifetime was not strong enough. This has been strengthened and I welcome it.

With regard to rural housing, the Minister specifically stated in the initial plan that the economic need for rural housing had to be the realisation of those who wish to pursue it. There is now mention of a social need, but in future there has to be autonomy for local authorities, whereby they can set their policy to meet and set the targets under which social and economic need can be met, because all counties are different. In my county, for example, priority is given to landowners or family members of landowners, those who can prove a tie to an area, and the provision of clusters of houses in areas where people congregate in villages and towns. This should also form part of it.

With regard to balanced regional development, any development would seek to weigh against the dominance we have seen in Dublin, which will be likely to continue in the future. As I stated earlier, the original plan had no vision, sight or recognition of balanced regional development, so much so that it had no provision, let alone a vision, for the north west or the midlands. It was unashamedly at the expense of those regions and neglected them. Has this been addressed? It has definitely sought to do so, but I contend it has not succeeded. It has taken away all together the population cap that seemed to be specific to various tier 2 towns in the region. I assume the emphasis will move to the regional plan and the spotlight will be taken off it in the context of a national perspective. The Minister will hope to get the caps through that process but I hope we will be able to withstand it.

The plan retains tier 1 growth. Taking my region in the midlands as an example, I will show how it has failed in this regard. Far from talking down my region, I will briefly quote some facts available in the January 2018 ESRI report on the prospects for Irish regions and counties. The plan takes the midlands region as an encompassment of Dublin and the east, which is a mistake. I do not know how much of the report the Minister referred to with regard to the provisions made in the plan, but when the midlands region of Laois, Offaly, Westmeath and Longford without the inclusion of eastern counties is compared with the Border, Dublin, mid-east, south-east, west and south-west regions, it is the lowest with regard to jobs growth prospects and jobs growth history. It is also the lowest with regard to share of population growth in the past five to ten years. It is the same with regard to start-ups and IDA Ireland investment and visits. In almost every such analysis we will see these statistics. The national spatial strategy in its concept recognised the fabric and psyche of the midlands as I do, and as do Deputies from Mullingar and Portlaoise and as Deputies from Athlone did.

In developing economic scale outside Dublin, and given the absence of a significant city in areas such as the midlands, an integrated approach had the best potential to succeed. The ESRI projections show the greater Dublin area will continue to grow disproportionately unless there is an effective planning framework to address it. It shows that traffic delays, rising house prices, capacity constraints and infrastructure in Dublin will get worse. This is unnecessary as there is underused capacity in key midlands towns such as Mullingar, Tullamore and Portlaoise. Downplaying these towns as the plan seeks to do only accelerates continued overdevelopment in Dublin. Last week's Copenhagen Economics report on Brexit published by the Government suggests regional areas are likely to suffer most from job losses. This will be reinforced by downplaying resources in the towns I have mentioned and will affect the region on a greater scale.

There is a case in the midlands for an integrated plan which involves adequate resources for land use, transport and housing as well as the development of industrial tourism and agri-services. The potential to develop towns in the midlands that received only tier 2 status will be greatly limited by this. In this revised plan, there is an overemphasis on the definition of a city or town as the focus for development. In Ireland, particularly in the region I am using as an example, a city region-type approach has merit, and by this I mean a cluster of towns in a region. The midlands does not have one town that is large enough, has a critical mass or is vastly superior to others. It has four or five towns which have little distance between them. These towns are downplayed in the plan, and their potential for development and growth in a wide range of areas is greatly damaged.

I am sure now, having studied this, the final decision was not based on any scientific analysis or reputable independent report, such as the Indecon report commissioned by local authorities in the midlands in years past. It was based on the "yahoo" factor. Tier 1 status for Athlone means the region is included in the Dublin figures and the statistics will stack up. As I said to somebody last week, if it was that easy and we wanted the "yahoo" factor, we would have made Clara the capital of the midlands ten years ago. When we study what emanates from the website, which goes about studying each town and what benefits will accrue to it, it speaks about a water pipe running through - "yahoo" for that. It speaks about 3,500 houses in the four counties of the region, but in one of those counties only 12 were built in the past six years. There is nothing specific to relate it to this great status it has associated with it, but everything to lose for the others that are moved to tier 2 status. It reminds me of something I read recently where Will Ferrell stated ignorance is a key component of comedy.

Although not exclusively the remit of this process, but rather on foot of the planning tribunal recommendation, we welcome the establishment of the regulator, which is part of the planning and development Bill going through the Houses. This leads me to several other points I want to mention. In my submission on behalf of Fianna Fáil, I recommended the establishment of a national infrastructural committee, which could realistically recommend and implement capital infrastructure to follow the national planning framework, which would follow the statutory placement of the national planning framework as devised and approved by Dáil Éireann.

That would take the politics out of it. For Fine Gael and for the Minister to say again tonight that the national planning framework is on a statutory basis is a lie, I am afraid.

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