Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When it comes to planning, our approach is driven by Project Ireland 2040, which was launched in Sligo over a year ago. This is a 20-year spatial plan which is linked to a ten-year €116 billion investment in our public infrastructure. The plan’s vision is to achieve, for the first time in Ireland, balanced regional development. That means the population of our cities, like Galway, Limerick, Cork, and Waterford, as well as other urban centres such as Athlone, Drogheda, Dundalk, Letterkenny working with Derry, and Sligo, will grow at a much faster rate over the next 20 years than Dublin. It is aimed to have three quarters of population growth happening outside the Dublin area. To make that possible, we need to, as the Deputy touched on, make sure the transport infrastructure can be built and is in place while social infrastructure around healthcare and education can be provided.

While the Deputy touched on several projects which have become stuck in the planning process or the legal process, we should not forget those which have been delivered. For example, the Gort-Tuam motorway, the M17-M18, the single largest transport infrastructure investment in the west in the past five years, connects Gort and Tuam by motorway, forming part of our vision for the Atlantic economic corridor linking up Galway, Limerick, Shannon and Cork. Another step was made on that road only last week when work started on the N4 upgrade to Sligo. We also have plans for BusConnects in Galway to improve bus services in the city, which is essential. The latest plans for the Galway ring road are with An Bord Pleanála. We anticipate oral hearings in the coming months.

The three projects referred to by the Deputy failed planning for different reasons. The data centre for Athenry went through planning reasonably efficiently through Galway Council and An Bord Pleanála. The hold-up was in the courts in and around a judicial review. That case is still in the courts. Apple has pulled out of the project but the Government is still pursuing the case on a point of law because we still want the data centre built in Athenry, if not for Apple then for somebody else.

It is definitely the case in my view that too many of these important projects which get through planning end up stymied in the courts. We need to change that. Part of that is around appointing more judges. It will also require a more efficient court process. Some of the change will be legislative as well. For example, we have amended the strategic infrastructure Act to include data centres. The Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, will bring forward a planning Bill in the next few months to change the law around judicial review. It will make it a little less easy for people to call for a judicial review of planning decisions, reduce the notice period and require people have proper locus standibefore taking such cases. We must always balance, however, the understandable desire on our part to get projects built with the right of individuals to object, to say the impact on their communities could be too harsh, and to take into account the impact on the environment.

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