Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

Resources, resources, resources. All the pages of legislation in the world will not change a thing unless the Government starts to put resources into the planning system. We have the worst housing crisis in the history of the State. It is estimated that about 30,000 homes are delayed due to the courts system in the State. Applications for more than 22,000 other homes are stuck in the planning process due to the decision-making backlog within An Bord Pleanála. That startling fact hangs around the neck of this Government. The Government itself is responsible for the backlog of 22,000 homes in the middle of a housing crisis.

These planning applications were made under a strategic housing development process. In that process, they are described specifically as fast-tracked development homes. An Bord Pleanála has a statutory mandate to issue decisions within 16 weeks but that statutory mandate amounts to a hill of beans because, right now, under this fast-track system, applications are averaging 79 weeks for a decision. The frustration that causes right around the country is immense. That type of Government uselessness is not unusual. Planning applications take aeons. It took eight years to even submit an application for the Midleton flood defences. Not one wind farm in the country has obtained planning permission in the last 12 months. Seven offshore wind turbines have received permission in 20 years. All of the applications have been put into the system. There is a major problem as regards the Government's ability to resource the planning system. Lives and livelihoods right across the country are being negatively affected by this.

The Government's lack of resources is the biggest blockage to the building of homes and infrastructure. I raised this issue with the Minister, Deputy Paschal Donohoe, in the committee just a couple of weeks ago. His attitude was that we cannot get the staff. If I want to open a sweet shop on Trimgate Street in Navan and I want to employ staff, then I would have to come up with a wage and terms and conditions that are attractive for people to take the job. If the Government, our local authorities or An Bord Pleanála want to employ staff, they have to be able to create terms and conditions and salaries that are attractive for the job. If there are no skills in the marketplace, the Government simply has to work on workplace planning. That means providing university places for young people to get the necessary qualifications to be able to do this work.

Philip Jones of the Irish Planning Institute told an Oireachtas committee that understaffing was the elephant in the room. He said that without resources, this Bill was a complete waste of time and that An Bord Pleanála recently looked for 59 staff but only got 39. My worry is that this Bill will add additional responsibilities to the State, local authorities, developers and companies in the future, which will make the resource issue even worse. Unfortunately, there does not seem to be a Government in the history of the State that does not think its job is to add further regulations and difficulties to the delivery of projects.

I also want to talk about judicial reviews. We often hear in the media that the Government blames judicial reviews for the fact that planning applications do not proceed. I agree that it is taking way too long for judicial reviews to proceed through the courts but that is because the courts system itself is banjaxed. It is completely inefficient and it does not have enough resources. There is not a TD here who will not tell you of a court case that is taking four or five years to proceed properly through the system. This project that the Government is involved in does not seek to fix a court system that is inefficient, slow and glacial. It seeks to remove it in a significant fashion from the whole planning procedure. That is a major difficulty that I have.

There is a problem with local authorities having planning authority over Gaeltacht areas. That authority should go to Údarás na Gaeltachta because it has a far better understanding of the need of Gaeltacht areas. Building large housing estates in Gaeltacht areas which have a majority of English speakers atomises that Gaeltacht because English becomes a dominant language in that Gaeltacht. I would like the Government to look at that.

This Bill includes an obligation for local authorities to develop draft plans for certain areas. We have all the draft plans we need in County Meath, for example, but Johnstown, which has a population of about 10,000 people and is nearly 25 years old, still does not have a playground or a community centre in the area. Navan has a population of nearly 40,000 people and the rail line has still not been reopened. Deputy Leddin mentioned that this country has a proud history of rail lines. This country has a proud history of lifting up rail lines and removing them. We have whole swathes of the country without rail lines. I am glad to see there is a renewed focus on rail and that Deputy Leddin is committed to it. Hopefully we can see projects develop in the future too.

The issue of taking estates in charge might seem small in the maelstrom of these discussions but there is not a TD here whose head has not been mithered by the fact that there are estates built 25 years ago that have not been taken in charge yet, where the developer has long since gone out of business and nobody is responsible for the upkeep of the area.

I do not have long left to speak but I want to talk about an element of litigation that is associated with development, which is strategic lawsuits against public participation, or SLAPP lawsuits. They are lawsuits that are intended to censor, intimidate or silence critics by burdening them with a high cost of legal defence which is designed to make them abandon their criticism or opposition. I know from people in my constituency who are environmentalists, have the best interests of the community at heart and work for the community for free that quarries and large companies are throwing lawsuits at them to beat the band.

These people are being given letters from solicitor firms for discovery in short periods of time and they are nearly doing a full-time job in providing material for these lawsuits. I would like the Government to look at the issue of SLAPP litigation in this Bill, to make sure we do not allow for vexatious SLAPP litigation and we allow for community organisations to engage properly with the system through the legal system as well.

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