Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This is an important debate. I welcome the speech of the Minister and, indeed, the speeches and the iteration of some of the charges that are being investigated. It is important that each and every one of those will be fully and properly independently investigated, as I understand it, by the Garda Síochána. That is the way it should and must be.

I pay tribute to former Mr. Justice Feargus Flood, who passed away recently. He was, in fact, the chair of the tribunal into planning corruption in Dublin city and county some years ago. The toxic mix of Ministers, developers and politicians was fatal for many of them because of the corruption that was exposed at that time.

Regardless of where I sit in this House, I will always support transparency and accountability, as, indeed, the vast majority of this House does.

There were some very important people involved in exposing those issues at that time: Mr. Frank McDonald from The Irish Times; Mr. Charlie Bird from RTÉ; and the famous, or infamous, Mr. Vincent Browne. They put the spotlight on these issues. That is proper in the appropriate place.

Whatever question there is, we have to make sure the ordinary person has confidence in the planning process. Confidence was shaken in the 1980s and the 1990s. No doubt it is shaken now and an appropriate and judicious examination of all the issues is terribly important. Never do we want to hear in any tribunal of inquiry, not that there will be one in the future, what Mr. James Gogarty said to the guy who was with him in the taxi as he went to the Minister's house with two brown envelops with £40,000 in each. He said, "Will we get a receipt for this?", referring to the £80,000. "Will we hell", or words to that effect, was the response. That day has to be gone. It was shocking and appalling.

For my own part, I have stood in the High Court to vindicate the planning rights of my community. When developers knocked down a listed building in the middle of the night, my former late colleague, Mr. Eddie O'Doherty, and I took a High Court action because the local authority would not act to vindicate a listed building under a High Court injunction that it could not be demolished without planning permission. It disappeared overnight on a holiday weekend. I note the court cases that were fought there. We fought the civil case and we were witnesses in the criminal case where those who knocked it down were prosecuted and the company, in fact, pleaded guilty.

The problem is that we do not want history to be repeated. I thought those fights and those battles that we fought would be ended now but such may not necessarily be the case.

I welcome what the Minister is doing. I welcome the commitment to change. I welcome a strict time limit on membership of the board. In fact, we probably need a judicial involvement in some respects in the operation of the board. There could be a case for a judge or a retired judge to review and oversee some of the goings on there to make sure that all of these issues should never arise again and we should look for best practice in other jurisdictions in relation to that.

There are a couple of points I want to make about the present day. For instance, in County Meath, there is a proposal by Dawn Meats to have a facility in Beauparc which will impact significantly and, I believe, adversely on the environment of the River Boyne. Hundreds of people have objected but the facts are that An Bord Pleanála has refused to grant those who objected to the facility to An Bord Pleanála an oral hearing, which, I think, is wrong. We need to look at that.

The more time goes on, the more things are the same. In Drogheda, there is a small estate called Beaulieu View. There was an open space in it for many years and the person who built the houses has decided to apply for planning permission to put a house on the green open space. It went to An Bord Pleanála. The An Bord Pleanála decision was that as it was identified as a green space in the original application it could not be built on but, as one might guess, I have had to write an objection this week to Louth County Council because the builder has applied again to build on a green site. It is a joke. These things should not be happening and we need greater clarity in these matters.

Regardless of what happens, I believe the investigations and analysis into An Bord Pleanála must restore our confidence in the planning process. The professionalism, as has been remarked on by many people, of the vast majority of people involved in the process hopefully will be vindicated. If it is not and if people have broken the law or the regulations, they must face the full rigor of the law. I fully support any actions which the Garda may or may not take into the future after due process.

This is an important debate. I welcome the actions of the Minister. I cannot fault him on any of the points he made in his address to us.

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