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

I suspect that, had I forewarned the Minister of State about the details what I was going to raise, he might have responded slightly differently. Like any of us who have been through the local government system, I am well aware of the process. I accept that there are guidelines but are they being adhered to? The Minister of State mentioned that planning authorities must have regard to them. In theory, local authorities can enter onto lands but that never happens and there are undoubtedly people who use every avenue to prolong a process. That is in their interests. They are not paying the commercial rates, levies and so on that go into the public purse.

This problem undermines the planning process and is unfair on the developments' neighbours. In some cases, public funds are being used to carry out repairs. In the case of a quarry, for example, who will pay for the reinstatement? No commercial rates, bonds or development levies were paid over.

Standards are set across a range of areas, but where someone has an unauthorised development, there is no testing or enforcement of those standards. Are data collected regarding how many unauthorised commercial developments are not subject to commercial rates? Is there a risk assessment of liabilities? In Naas in my constituency, we ended up with a mountainous dump that went on fire and cost more than €20 million to reinstate. It was an unauthorised development that had consequences.

Are there plans to tighten up the unauthorised development process? Is there oversight of attempts to get consistency in local authorities' application of unauthorised development laws, given that that application can vary?

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