Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

To say this is a mess would be understating the situation. It is difficult to know where to begin. I cannot really see credible justifications for some of the provisions in this Bill. It is being rammed through Second, Committee and Remaining Stages in one day, although it is dealing with such serious matters. This is being done without proper scrutiny or any real evidence or justification for what the Minister is trying to do. In the brief time allowed to me, I will summarise the rationale behind what I have just said.

We all know An Bord Pleanála needs radical reform in respect of how the board is nominated, the number of people on the board, the board's quorum and so on. I would take the Minister's point on the rationale for this rush if we needed a chairperson just to make the board function briefly, but if the justification is to give the Minister power to decide on the appointment process, possibly for up to two years, we should proceed differently. If it is just a matter of keeping the thing functioning for a short while - the Minister could tell us who he is actually proposing or how he is planning to proceed - there should be no question of this power grab, which is what it is, or going back to the very situation we had to move away from because of all the scandals around political interference in the planning process.

I do not accept, after all we have been through in this country, that we should effectively give total political control in respect of the board and who is to be nominated to chair it, although I do of course agree, as we have been arguing consistently, that we need a much bigger quorum. It was unbelievable that two people were effectively making planning decisions. The whole nomination process was, to put it mildly, vulnerable to corruption, massive conflicts of interest and so on. There needs to be a considerable, radical and fundamental overhaul but that should not entail centralising power in the hands of the Minister. Rather, it should be about ensuring genuine independence and genuinely having a broad spectrum of stakeholders, experts and people to protect the public interest and ensure sustainable development. It should also be about ensuring all these matters are adjudicated fairly and objectively according to the law. What the Minister is doing is without justification.

On the foreshore issues, it is pretty telling that environmentalists are urging us not to proceed with this because we do not know the possible implications. They are very worried about what changes to the foreshore Act might mean. Representatives of the industrial wind energy sector are saying the same thing, but from precisely the opposite point of view. They are saying their ambitions may be inhibited. It is pretty extraordinary in and of itself that the two ends of the spectrum of concern around our maritime area, insofar as this Bill impacts upon it, have radically divergent views about what this measure actually does and what its unintended consequences, including legal consequences, might be. The occupancy rights of people such as fishermen to fish in certain areas might be affected if foreshore licences are given for certain things within the foreshore area.

We are not quite sure because major debates have been going on within the Department dealing with the foreshore as to exactly what the foreshore is anyway, and where it begins and ends. That is not acceptable. All of these things need to be thoroughly scrutinised in here and cannot be rammed or rushed through. It gives huge scope for dodgy unintended consequences. The Minister should press the pause button on all of this so we can have the proper scrutiny and understand what we are doing, what the legal consequences are, and what the impact on the various stakeholders and on our environment might be.

I now turn to the Part 8 planning process and the right of the public to be consulted on Part 8 planning proposals. I went to the briefing, which on Monday. We asked the Minister's officials if they had any evidence whatsoever that this is necessary. There was none. They were quite frank about not having any evidence. There is no evidence at all that Part 8 planning process and the public consultation on it has been, in any shape or form, a blockage to development on public land. Not at all. In fact, insofar as the officials were pushed they said that since the reforms in this area, it has been working very smoothly. It is certainly my experience of the Part 8 process. It is time fixed and is efficient from a time point of view. It gives people the opportunity to be consulted and it works. Why on earth is the Minister doing it? The Minister's officials could not tell us. Not a single shred of evidence was provided. We will see. To me, this smacks of something bigger, which is the myth - I am not allowed to say "lie", so I will not say "lie" - or the falsehood that the Government keeps peddling that the reason we cannot deliver social housing and housing generally is because of all these terrible objectors, and that this is the problem.

In his article in the Business Postat the weekend, Killian Woods referred to various Government publications, one of which was Build 2022: Construction Sector Performance and Capacity, and fair play to him. Mel Reynolds has often pointed me to this document as well, and it is something we should all read. It is the Government's own analysis of why we are not building to a sufficient degree. Does it mention public consultation or the planning process once? Not once does it mention public consultation, objections, or times of planning.

Far more telling, the article states there are 75,000 planning permissions for apartments, some 32,000 of which are in Dublin. Only 5,000 are being delivered annually. It then explains why this might be the case. It could indicate the speculative holding and purchasing of land with a view to greater future resale value - in other words, speculation. It is the acquiring of planning permissions to hold as an asset. The report states that the building up of planning permissions is largely linked to apartment schemes, which can be very valuable assets.

Another report, Planning Permissions and Housing Supply, states that acquiring permission for apartment development, rather than housing developments, could be the most attractive option for speculative land holders and thus yield the most amount of value added upon resale. The same report states that one of the most significant knowledge gaps that constrains the Government from addressing land speculation with new policies is the lack of data on land transactions. This report identifies, explicitly, land speculation by private investors in land and property.

The Build 2022: Construction Sector Performance and Capacity report goes on to state something interesting, which applies directly to Part 8. The report points out another problem. It states, "...one of the biggest barriers to improving productivity is the design time waste created by the lack of a collaborative approach between client, [which in this case could be the local authority] designers and the delivery team/contractor." The fragmentation of planning, construction and design is brought about by lots of multiple private operators. Rather than the State and local authorities having their own construction capacity to design, build and put the whole thing together, there is constant switching between one private operator and another, designers and contractors and so on. The report identifies this as the problem.

Does the Minister propose legislation here tonight that deals with speculation? No. Does the Minister propose or support the setting up of a State construction capacity so we can overcome these problems? No. Instead, the Minister wants to blame people who put in submissions to planning applications, while there is no evidence they have any impact whatsoever on our ability to build houses or infrastructure. It smells a bit fishy.

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