Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputy Fitzpatrick.

I am delighted to be able to speak on this legislation. As I was a councillor before being elected to the Dáil, I know the vagaries of the planning system and the differences that can apply in how people take on the legislation that is there. Fundamentally, we need to look at how we are dealing with rural housing.

I ask the Minister to look at that because several issues arise. One concerns people from a farming background not being able to build a house on that land, unless they are farming it. That is unfair because such people are being given a site by their family and access to the site may be through the farm. It is single access and not creating any more access onto the road. It is important we build in that point. One of the other speakers mentioned the Flemish decree and the free movement of people. It is important that we afford that right to people. The other issue which comes up regularly is that Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, has such influence when people want to build houses. If TII puts in a submission to a local authority, that is it. No planning permission will be granted and that is unfair because people spend a lot of money on getting their applications together. Two issues must be examined in the context of the overall planning legislation, which we must look at and overhaul.

Another issue prevalent at the moment concerns asking people to live in towns, villages and settlement centres. In County Galway, and in east Galway in particular, no house can now be built in settlement or growth centres such as Craughwell, my village of Corofin, or Abbeyknockmoy, and there are many similar places. The reasons include the local authority being unable to grant permission for a private wastewater treatment plant. An Bord Pleanála has backed that up by also refusing it. Galway County Council will also not give planning permission for single septic tanks on these sites, and neither will An Bord Pleanála. We also do not have a central municipal treatment plant, as we used to call it, in place. What we have, therefore, is no planning permission being granted and no building going on. We do not want people to live in the countryside, but they cannot live in the towns and villages. It is important, therefore, that we get this issue sorted out once and for all.

I also want to raise the issue of subsequent consent. We spoke about Derrybrien and we must get that matter resolved. It is in my constituency, and it was a disaster. We are paying €15,000 a day in fines and we just cannot let that go on ad infinitum. What could we have done with that €15,000 per day in recent years, when we have been paying out so much money? There are issues concerning applications for planning permission, subsequent consent and leave to appeal which are worrying. I ask the Minister to look at those aspects. He might solve the Derrybrien issue with this legislation, but we still need further clarity and legislation in respect of quarry owners.

I refer to those who cannot get planning permission because neither the local authority nor An Bord Pleanála is capable of dealing with it for the simple reason that we have serial objectors and every move is being challenged in the courts. This is tying people up and wasting a great deal of resources. This goes back to one thing: EU directives. The way we have transposed them has resulted in a big log jam. We have inertia. We cannot get things done or move things on and that is costing industry millions of euro. We will end up with local authorities not being able to find quarry material in the not too distant future, just as we have similar problems now in the forestry sector, where it is not possible to find any native timber.

We have serious issues. We must take the planning legislation we have, have a root and branch examination of it and ensure we deliver something which is workable. One of the things which has crept into this area of planning, and we can see it if we look at the situation involving Apple in Athenry, is that the judicial review process is a sham. We must introduce timelines and we need to do that immediately.

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