Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

One would expect the word "independent" to mean totally independent but who is the decision-maker here? The way this is structured, the decision-maker is the Minister. We cannot say it is independent in the way it was intended. That is a serious problem.

Amendment No. 40 states that local area plans should be "consistent with". That is the correct terminology. The terminology used previously was "having regard to" but that was successfully challenged in the courts. "Consistent with" is the correct approach. It deals with the objectives of the development plan and the national regional planning objectives.

We then have other legislation to the effect that if a development is more than 100 houses, it bypasses the council and goes straight to An Bord Pleanála, and An Bord Pleanála can ignore the local area plan provided the land is zoned for residential development. That is the critical issue. Everything set down in the plan relating to consistency, linkages with services, schools and all sorts of issues that are tested in a local area plan go out the window because An Bord Pleanála does not have to take the local area plan on board. That is a glaring gap in terms of what we are attempting to achieve by making a range of different issues such as national and regional planning objectives "consistent with" as stated in the amendment. It does not matter when it comes to large-scale developments.

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