Michael Collins (Cork South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on the Bill. This amendment proposes to establish an office, to be known as the "Office of the Planning Regulator", which will have certain duties. We undoubtedly need more transparency and efficiency in our planning system. I am inundated with constituents in west Cork coming to me looking for help because they have been turned down for planning. They have been caught in a trap. Good, honest, hard working couples cannot get planning permission and are failing to get into the property market. Many have applied for planning permission on their parents' land. One would think the Government would welcome the idea of people wanting to remain in rural Ireland, given the significant positive economic benefits it would have. Time and again, I have spoken about how we need to protect rural Ireland and the people who live there. The people who are raised in rural Ireland should be entitled to planning permission on their parents' land. We constantly discuss our ageing population, but we need to be realistic: if a son or daughter cannot obtain planning permission at his or her own home`place, how are we going to protect our ageing population and those who wish to remain in their own homes? In fairness, many planners are co-operative, but the odd one here and there makes life difficult. We have found the main issue to be with getting a pre-planning meeting, where someone sits down with a young couple trying to start out in life to go through the process and reach agreement, before those young people start spending thousands of euro, which is only fair.

I know of a situation in west Cork involving a young man who got a farm from his family. After he had cattle on it and a tractor in his shed, he was told by the planner that he did not have cattle, a tractor or a shed. Who is giving that person that type of information? It was wrong. All the young man wanted was for the lady to sit into her car and drive to the farm so that he could show her all three. The tractor was in the shed and the cattle were in the field. When common sense goes out the window, it is easy to refuse and refuse, which makes it difficult for the senior officials - some of the ones we work with are extremely co-operative, fair and honest - who have to try to overturn such decisions.

This Bill promises to implement planning-related recommendations such as the national planning framework. During the negotiations on the programme for Government, I spoke at length about the regeneration programme for small rural towns and villages and the ability to rebuild those that have been decimated by emigration, for example, places in west Cork like Ballineen, Eyeries, Goleen, Kilcrohane, Kealkill, Timoleague, Durrus, Drimoleague, Ballydehob and Schull to name a few. Will we ever seen a regeneration programme rolled out in west Cork?

While we are discussing planning, let me tell the Minister of State about kelp planning. The mechanical harvesting of kelp-----

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