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

I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting this Topical Issue matter. It is fair to say the planning laws are only as good as their enforcement and each local authority has a different approach. In addition, the courts are often involved in the most egregious cases. As is usual, I am dealing with several unauthorised developments at the moment, as I think is every other Deputy. I have chosen three to give a flavour of some of the problems.

The first is a garage and panel-beating business within a residential setting in Naas. It is located to the side of a private home and it does not have planning permission. An unauthorised development file was opened in May 2015, following which the council initiated legal proceedings later that year. After many District Court postponements, the case was heard in September 2017. Following that, there was an application to retain, which was subsequently rejected and which was then appealed. When that process was exhausted, an application to declare the development an exempted development was made and rejected and is being appealed. In the meantime, the council is back in the District Court and the case has been mentioned but postponed until the appeal is decided. In the meantime, the neighbouring home is subject to noise from early morning until late at night with activity at weekends and their garden is now simply off-limits to them. I am also told that the licence for chemicals has expired, so there are potential health and fire risk implications. No commercial rates are being paid because there is no planning permission. That is totally unfair on other businesses which are trading in an unequal environment. No development levies are being paid either. In May of this year, it will be four years since the unauthorised development file was opened and it looks like it will still be in operation four years later.

The second example is a large quarry in Ballysax beside the Curragh in south Kildare. The Ceann Comhairle will be more than familiar with this particular one, which is not in my constituency. The site in question has no planning permission and its footprint has expanded to more than 60 acres. It has gone through the whole entire unauthorised development process, including warning letters and enforcement and has gone right up to the High Court which made an order to cease operation. The decision specified that quarry owners were to wind down the activity. They were given a very generous six months to do that. They were to cease all activities on 1 February of this year. What has happened is that the activity has accelerated and the footprint has widened. The amount of traffic has noticeably increased. I have photographs that show this and are truly shocking. The council has applied to the Circuit Court to enforce the High Court order. The council is now in the hands of the court as to when the case will be heard.

There is an interesting contrast between how Kildare County Council and Wicklow County Council apply the law regarding quarries. Wicklow takes a no-nonsense, straight in with the injunction approach, while Kildare takes a more lenient approach. There is a noticeable contrast in the behaviour by quarry owners when a different approach is applied.

This quarry has no planning permission and, therefore, there are no funds for reinstatement, there are no bonds, there are no development levies and there is significant ongoing damage being done to the roads which the council is repeatedly repairing. It is being argued that the road repairs are being funded from the public purse to facilitate what is essentially an illegal development. The neighbouring homes are living with dust, noise, heavy commercial activity, significant damage to the landscape and the water table has been altered. There are mountains of soil there that did not exist before. I have numerous photographs which I can give to the Minister as to the operation and planning breach here.

I will continue with what I was going to say in my response later.

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