Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will raise a point about this situation we find ourselves in this evening. Maybe the Minister of State will explain to us. Last Thursday, when we were dealing with the Bill, the Minister of State, Deputy Niall Collins, was here. I do not think he has any role in it, or maybe he has. I did not get to check his portfolio, but I thought it was education. We should all be in education because the Government needs to learn a lot from this behaviour. Did it not even listen to Uachtarán na hÉireann when he criticised, after Christmas, the volume of legislation that he had sent to him to deal with? Some 12 Bills will be delivered in the coming weeks.

This is a whole new Bill, but we were shocked when the Minister, glibly and quite arrogantly, told us that he would introduce five new sets of amendments. I think there were six sets of amendments when they arrived. There are 69 different amendments. The Minister of State comes in and tells us they are mostly technical. Many of these issues are not technical at all. This is ham-fisted and rushed and the legislation is very serious.

The Minister of State then made a plea to us on this side of the House regarding how urgent short-term lettings are. Did the Government only find out in the past couple of weeks that there was a problem with short-term lettings? It beggars belief. I do not know what is driving the Government, who it is working for or whatever.

Not so long ago, we dealt with the Maritime Area Planning Act and there are a plethora of amendments before us again and the Government is telling us that if we do not take them now and deal with them, we might not reach our 2030 climate targets. Is it only now the Government found that out? We have been telling it that for ages. Until such a time as we reach the targets that we have set, we must keep our lights on in some form or other, to keep them working and to have some kind of energy. It will be slow, difficult and challenging, but we cannot sign a blank cheque here for wind developers or whoever else offshore. I am not against this development, but we certainly need time to scrutinise it because there is ecology and wildlife in the sea that has to be protected as well. It is very sharp practice and very poor.

In conjunction with this, there is an inquiry going on into An Bord Pleanála. What will Joe public think about this? Many felt they did not get a fair hearing. Many of whom I am dealing with in my constituency have had issues with planning, went to appeal, the inspectors of An Bord Pleanála came down and did the job they are employed to do and gave a report. We now know that the reports, 90% of the time, were rejected by a few members of the board. We did not know before. I have no insight. There there only three members looking at the report and adjudicating. What is the point in paying the inspectors, if this is going to go on? First, there was nothing in this inquiry, then there was more and then there was nothing and then we saw a resignation on Friday night last week of a pretty senior person.

Confidence in the planning system is at an all-time low. My county, Tipperary, just finished its county development plan after considerable work. I thank the planners and the councillors who finished it Dé Luain, last Monday. A lot of work has to bed in and settle. We will have to live with that plan for the next five years. We had the last plan for seven years because of Covid, delays and everything else.

The only way we found out about An Bord Pleanála was because of judicial reviews and now, I think, the Government will try to curtail them as well.

Some of the legislation, certainly, is to deal with a Supreme Court case, but it is kind of dealt with in such a way as to tell those learned gentlemen across the river with the wigs and gowns, not to mess with the Government, because it can change the rules to make them more compliant. I am very disappointed.

I am very disappointed because I know the Minister of State and I knew him before ever he was in government to be reasonable and flexible but I think he is spending too much time with the Minister. How could I forget his name? I call the Minister, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the new Rambo from Dublin north because the arrogance is oozing out of him. I would not mind if anything meaningful was being done, such as building houses that we need for the people but, instead, we are told that we are shameful and not right or responsible by not accepting these amendments. I think the Minister of State said the Government has withdrawn amendment No. 25 relating to the judicial reviews, but the Government would not withdraw any of them if it was not challenged and he was critical of the media.

There is a duty on us to interrogate, examine and try to amend or point out the flaws in legislation, but we cannot do that with no time. When I questioned this last week, I was told flippantly by the Minister that we would have a briefing last Monday. However, some of us have commitments in constituencies and we cannot just come in at the drop of a hat, because the Government has forced us in to giving a briefing on a Monday. As Deputy Boyd Barrett said, the only explanatory memorandum that arrived came this morning at two minutes to nine.

In fairness to the Bills Office and the drafters of legislation, they have worked all night some nights recently. It is totally unfair on those good people who do great work. It is totally unfair to foist all this legislation, not only this Bill, but the five other Bills we have today, on them and expect them to work through the night to deal with them. The best people in the world will make mistakes in those kinds of situations, such as typos, due to lack of sleep and being tired. The Government could teach some of the dictators and their regimes out foreign about sleep deprivation. It is a mess. It is like filling a mixer when mixing concrete. The Government has fired everything into the mix and hopes it will come out in a good mix, but it will not. It will come out in a Dolly Mixture or like Liquorice Allsorts, and we will not have anything decent as a result.

No regulatory impact analysis has been done on any of the legislation, especially this legislation, to see how it will bed in. There is no review clause. There is nothing. It is wild west kind of legislation, which goes from An Bord Pleanála and short-term lets and the maritime Bill with regard to wind, to giving more power to the OPR. How did we ever manage in our little country before we had that office? I remember being on the county council back in the 1990s and again in the 2000s drafting county development plans. We did not have to be looking over our shoulders or to be browbeaten by the OPR and told at every step that the office would not accept this.

Are we taking away every last vestige of power that the elected members of the county councils have in the making of the plan?

We had to fight with management and could never get independent legal advice because it was not available to us. We had to take the same legal advice the manager got, which was totally unfair and discriminatory, unless we wanted to pay for it ourselves. That was prohibitive and councillors could not do it. Now we have the Office of the Planning Regulator as well.

We now have all these officers and offices with brass plates on the walls, fancy furniture and nice jobs for the boys. I said this last week and I will say it again. I think Deputy Matthews is still here. He was critical of me for criticising NGOs and An Taisce. I make my criticism without fear or favour because what An Taisce did with regard to the Glanbia cheese plant in Kilkenny was nothing short of national sabotage. I am being repetitive now but the Acting Chairman might allow me to continue. An Taisce had no issue with the plant, the emissions licence, the planning or anything else. Its issue was with the herd number. How could we have a situation where An Taisce was able to object to this and go to the courts with it three or four times, I believe, and threaten to go the European court as well? In fairness to the Taoiseach, who I do not give much praise, he did say to me one day here that this system of judicial reviews would have to be looked at. Thank God, the sod was turned on the plant two weeks ago and it has commenced. We are so lucky the Dutch investors stayed with us and stayed the course because this would not happen in many other places. Now it is being built.

Meanwhile, we were lorrying big laden trucks full of milk up to Strathroy and all over the country. There was no talk of the carbon footprint of that. That case shows the narrow-mindedness and pettiness of An Taisce. When Deputy Danny Healy-Rae and I, along with colleagues, had a meeting with the An Taisce we got nothing but disdain. I was never against An Taisce because it did great work on tidying villages, heritage, the Green Flag scheme and much else. I am not dismissing it and saying it should stay at that but I question its role with that Glanbia plant and in many other areas. Its staff are do-gooders who are well-paid, well-heeled and many of them are retired from senior positions on good pensions. The trouble An Taisce is putting householders and people who want to build their own homes through is nothing short of disgraceful.

I am not reckless; we want good planning. However, I must pick Deputy Boyd Barrett up on one point. His good colleague, Deputy Gino Kenny, was down walking my mountains, as I call them, the Knockmealdown Mountains, two weeks ago. All Deputies are welcome. Deputy Boyd Barrett might come sometime but I do not know how he would move a mountain. He said a mountain was moved at Derrybrien. I have not been on Derrybrien-----

See this speech in context