Dáil debates

Wednesday, 14 December 2022

Planning and Development and Foreshore (Amendment) Bill 2022: Second Stage

 

2:20 pm

Photo of John McGuinnessJohn McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the discussion on this Bill. I welcome the discussion about An Bord Pleanála, local authorities and the delivery of houses. If one reflects on what was said yesterday during the debate on the motion of no confidence on the Minister, one will realise that most of the problems we have stem from local authorities or the bureaucracy of the State being inefficient and not fit for purpose. It is those issues we should be addressing.

During my time in local government and the Dáil, I always told anyone who came to inquire about planning that An Bord Pleanála was beyond reproach, that it had a job to do, was independent and so on. Boy was I naive about that. The recent controversy has exposed so much in An Bord Pleanála that it will require considerable work to mend its name and put it back on track. I refer to many of the decisions that were made around telephone masts and masts for mobile phone systems - the usage of them, access to sites, the value of those sites after they are developed and so on. In an awful lot of those cases, the initial planning is now suspect. I know that from my involvement in the local community group in Kells in County Kilkenny where the erection of a mast has stopped all because the planning was an issue. It has ignored the recommendations of the Minister in terms of where masts should be and just ploughs on as if it has no policy and no direction but can do what it likes.

I wish to raise the issue of quarries. I raised it with the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications in the Dáil but he just turned a deaf ear and a blind eye to it, which is amazing from a Green Party Minister and the Green Party leader. The amount of destruction in George's Tree Quarry in Kilkenny is appalling. It is essential that some intervention be made to support the local authority in stopping the damage that is being done in that quarry. I have appealed through the Oireachtas for an intervention but nothing has happened. It is the same in County Laois. Again there are issues relating to quarries and there are a number of illegal quarries. I have put two questions to Kilkenny County Council on two quarries. It is so reluctant to reply, it is staggering.

Wind energy is another issue. We see where wind farms are being objected to. The Minister has the county development plan and the strategy for wind farms in his office waiting to be signed off on. Areas like Castlebanny, Templemore and Mullabeg are waiting for a direction. I believe an awful lot of the decision making should be left to local authorities, which should apply their county development plan to each of the applications. If it should go to An Bord Pleanála, An Bord Pleanála should then ensure there is independence and the decision-making process is open and transparent. I encourage the Minister to look at the further measures that are needed to put An Bord Pleanála on such a footing that it is again respected.

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