Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Like my colleague, Deputy Connolly, I will put on record my concerns about how this Bill is being brought forward in the rushed way it is, and how it is changing completely between now and Committee Stage next week. This is a real problem. It does not lead to proper democratic oversight of how the Bill progresses. It is symptomatic of how this Government treats the end of term that is now coming up. There will be 19 Bills before the House by the end of this term in July, while from January to July we probably dealt with approximately 12. Some of the provisions in this Bill, which are being rushed through next week because they are absolutely necessary, have been flagged since before last summer. It is not that these have suddenly been foisted on the Government and it has to deal with them; these have been sitting around. The Department has been sitting around on these provisions waiting for the summer recess so it can get them in the Bill and get them rushed through without any scrutiny. That is the reality of the situation. These provisions have been sitting around since last summer so why could they not have been dealt with before now, if that is the case? That really is a problem and it is worrying.

It can be seen, when looking at every year for the past five or six years since I have been elected, and probably in the years before that as well, that in July there is a mad rush to put Bills through. We get this process every summer in the run-up to the recess. The same thing happens in the run-up to Christmas, when a raft of Bills come through. Why is that? It is because there will be no democratic scrutiny and that is what the Government wants. We then get the Taoiseach coming to the House lecturing us about how there should be democratic scrutiny and so on, and that this is a legislative body and we should deal with legislation rather than motions and all that kind of thing. The reason we deal with motions is the Government has no legislation to put forward. That is why motions are on the agenda. The Government would not allow motions on the agenda if there was legislation to deal with. This scam that is played on the people by the Government every year is wrong. It has been highlighted very particularly by this Bill today. That is a problem.

There are some useful things in this Bill that are to be welcomed, but there are also many things that are very concerning. It is also interesting that it shows how the Government views and looks at the Supreme Court and how that court does its business. As Deputy Connolly said, if a planning application was properly constituted and properly submitted to a council, it would not get a hearing in the Supreme Court. The reason the Supreme Court allows planning applications to be heard is there are problems with them that have to be dealt with. We would not have this so-called judicial process and so on if there was not a problem with legislation. That is very important. This Department states that this legislation is correct and defers to the Court of Justice of the European Union. We then saw yesterday that the Department of Justice stated the Court of Justice of the European Union is completely wrong and should not be doing things. The contrast between both Departments and what they look at is interesting.

I welcome the streamlining of the substitute consent process for quarries in this Bill. That is very important. County Donegal is probably unique in the country in that there are many approved quarries there and many that are just quarrying building stone. The process has been tortuous for them. There was an attempt to rectify it a number of years ago but that led to major problems for very small operators who are quarrying very small amounts of craft building stone. They are being treated the exact same as very large operators of very commercial premises. That is wrong.

I welcome the fact that this sub-consent streamlining process is in there. I think that will make a difference. It is something positive that comes out of this legislation. We look at the planning process and the flexibility that is within the system. Some of these issues are very technical and it is important that they are considered prior to Committee Stage.

The exclusion of the public from various stages is nonsensical and completely wrong. The Minister will create more judicial processes by doing that. I always wonder what is so badly wrong with the planning process that we have to exclude the public until a very late stage so that we pull the wool over their eyes for as long as possible and not let them know what is happening regarding a proposed plan. That does not serve anybody. The Minister is actually doing a disservice to the people he wants to help. He is doing developers a disservice by putting this process on them. If they went out and talked to people in advance of an application, I believe it would do a lot more to streamline the process and make it work for everybody. That way, we would not have as many applications ending up before the courts.

While there are some welcome aspects to the legislation, there is an awful lot that is very worrying. These measures might be good if they were sorted out but the problem is that we will not have the time to deal with them and see whether they are or not. This might be horrific for the Government, but perhaps the Opposition could amend the Bill in such a way that it would make it better and make it work, but the Government would never accept that.

The process that we are going through here is wrong. It is wrong for this Department and for every Department. What is happening is that we are rushing legislation through in the jaws of summer and that is ultimately the real problem with this entire process. I wanted to put my thoughts on the record in regard to the Bill. I will deal with amendments at a later stage. This process could have been done an awful lot better. There was time to put amendments forward. The Government says there is not very much time for legislative debate and that it has to put all the legislation in together to get it through. If that is the case, there is something wrong with the process. There is enough time from January through to July to get legislation addressed because very little legislation is dealt with in this House in that period.

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