Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister for bringing the Bill to the House. It is certainly a mammoth piece of work that, as Deputy Matthews said, will have a generational impact because we will be living with the consequences, good or bad, of this Bill for many years to come. I hope the Minister has got it right. Getting it right is critical because if we want to create a healthy, happy and thriving society, one that provides opportunity for ourselves, our children and grandchildren, planning is critical to that. I hope the Bill is the framework for that success in the future. I concede that I have not read the 700 pages either, although I am going to have a look at it over Christmas, when I have more time, and get into it in more detail. However, I am passionate about the importance of planning.

I want to offer a climate perspective to the Minister and the House, and to speak in particular about two fundamental pillars of our climate solution. The first is district heating, which we have not done in this country historically, but it is a significant part of our climate action plan to deliver district heating networks in this country. The other is rail. We have a long and proud history of rail transport in this country right up to the 1950s and 1960s, but then, from that point on, the car and the lorry were seen as the way forward for transport. It is only now that we are realising that those 20th-century transport innovations were good up to a point but we need to embrace rail again because there are limitations to what car and truck transport can do in terms of how they deliver transport services to our society and economy.

I would like the Bill to enable both district heating and rail development in this country. In order to do that, in tandem with the review of the national planning framework, the Bill needs to get densities right in our urban centres, and around our urban centres in particular. We will not have district heating or rail development unless we have high-density urban development. When we design and build high-density developments, we have to ensure that they are high quality because a mistake that has been made in the past is that the quality has been missing. Other countries have done quite well and we can do it well here also. With that high-density urban development, we need to develop high-capacity transport systems, and bus and rail are that. The Bill needs to shepherd this country in that direction such that those kinds of infrastructural developments - district heating networks and high-capacity transport systems such as rail and bus services - are supported and promoted by this legislation.

I want to discuss the importance of the protection of our built heritage, and this Bill is important in that respect. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donnell, and I come from Limerick and represent it as best we can. Limerick is a very proud city with a very ancient and beautiful built heritage. That has been undermined significantly over the years and decades through private and public development, and the Minister of State will know about the threat that our Georgian city faces through dereliction, vacancy, poor maintenance and lack of investment. Just two weeks ago, a building on Thomas Street had to undergo emergency repairs as it was in danger of collapsing. It is very remiss that, in this day and age, the proud and beautiful built heritage that we have is still under threat.

I think it was an act of cultural vandalism that the previous incarnation of An Bord Pleanála permitted the demolition of Curragower House. There were very questionable decisions by An Bord Pleanála in Limerick city over the years. While I am very supportive of the Limerick 2030 project generally, I wonder if that previous incarnation of An Bord Pleanála would have permitted a 15-storey tower on Merrion Square, given it has permitted that at Bank Place in Limerick. That decision is made and there is no turning back on it, and I give my full support to Limerick 2030. However, just looking at the decisions in Limerick over the years, we can see that we have not been protecting our built heritage as we should be. This is about planning and getting it right. I would like to think that given all of the reforms that have been brought in during the last year or two with respect to the board, and the new personnel there, we will see better decisions made, not just in Limerick, the city that I am familiar with, but in every town and city across the country. It is important that our heritage is protected and the Bill should seek to do that as well.

There should be strong provision in the Bill to compel local authorities. It is not just about the private sector. We must compel our local authorities to protect the built heritage that we have. It is not about wrapping these old buildings in cotton wool. We have to be able to work with them, invest in them and make alterations and modifications to them when necessary, so that is not what I am talking about, but those points are very important.

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