Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry. The Deputy asked for an example. If, in the future, we set national guidelines on solar farms and a local development plan does not respect the national guidelines, the regulator will step in and suggest they should be respected, that the local development plan should be changed and recommend a direction by the Minister. Today, that direction is carried out by the Minister and very often our Department. On a weekly basis we analyse local area plans and any changes made and sometimes we have to point out that they do not follow national planning guidelines and may have to intervene with a direction. That is decided by our Department and formally sent then by me as a Minister of State. Under the changes proposed in this Bill, the regulator will do that work. The final sign-off with a direction is done by the Minister but the process would be started by the office of the regulator, which is independent of politics.

Some Deputies do not want the Minister to have that final say while others on this side of the House want him or her to have the final say. I believe we are getting the best of both worlds in that we will have an independent regulator who will make a recommendation. The Minister has to follow that. If the Minister of the day does not follow that, he or she has to come into this House and explain the reason he or she is not following that direction. It is a very transparent policy. The spirit of the Mahon tribunal is for transparency in planning laws. That is what this Bill is about and what we are trying to achieve. It is not to give a future Minister excessive or mad powers. It recognises that sometimes the regulator might suggest a change that the Minister does not like, so we are achieving a balance in that the final say will be democratic because it is done through this House but the regulator will be doing all the work and making all the recommendations. The wording used in the past was to take sufficient account of a national planning guideline, not implement it. That is a grey area. We are saying that national planning guidelines are there to be implemented and not just noted, which is not often satisfactory.

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