Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There will be considerable agreement, in the sense that we all know the issues that exist with the planning system and we all want a fit-for-purpose - an overused term, particularly by myself - system that can deliver for people. We know we want a planning system that can deliver social, economic and environmental needs. We are speaking about good quality planning decisions that can be made in a timely manner. We have not always been able to deliver this. There has to be acceptance of this. There may be some moves in the correct direction in the Bill but there is a considerable amount of work to be done. I would like to think the promises from the Government benches on working with the Opposition will be followed through. This is absolutely necessary.

We all know the confines and constraints we are in with regard to being able to deliver the Paris Agreement emissions targets for 2030 and 2050. We also note the great need we have with the accommodation crisis. We know that at times planning has not been put in place for all of the homes, schools, hospitals, public amenities and infrastructure that are required. It is about how we do this without impacting negatively on the environment. This is the only direction we can go and we need to put in place a system to do this.

We are trying to undo what has been a large amount of poor and bad legislation. We all get the idea. We want to speak about it being planning-led rather than development-led. I have seen it in my home town recently with the floods. It showed that nobody has been properly assessing the issues with our wastewater and clean water systems. We have had major problems when suddenly something was moved from the local authorities to Uisce Éireann and, at times, subcontracted to a third party.

My main problem with all of it is that nobody made the assessment in relation to the need that exists. We have had a considerable amount of building, whether business infrastructure, factories, huge pharmaceutical operations that we are only delighted to have in our area, or housing estates, of which we need a hell of a lot more. We need to ensure an assessment of need is done and we have a planning system that can follow through on that assessment.

We know what the issue is in relation to local authority planning departments, An Bord Pleanála and the courts. Again, generally, these are logjammed and do not have enough people in the right positions. That is a problem. We have seen certain improvements in the last while concerning An Bord Pleanála but that is only a first step. People have not been recruited for all the positions required. A particular issue in respect of big infrastructural projects has been that we cannot even deliver on the timelines promised by An Bord Pleanála. We need to ensure we have fit-for-purpose rules and regulations but none of this will matter if we do not have all the stakeholders required to deliver the planning system and a sufficient number of people in the right places.

The Government promised to increase the number of judges dealing with planning cases but we have not seen this happen yet. It goes without saying that if we do not deal with this issue, we will continue to have the logjams and end up unable to deliver on anything. We know the issues we had with poor legislation, for example, on SHDs. That and other attempts to circumvent the system ended up blowing up in our faces from a planning perspective. We all know the huge issues there have been in this area, whether it is the conflict between central and local government planning or between planning applicants and residents. We need a decent framework in this regard. We have all seen that where decent planning operations have been put in place, there has been an extensive level of outreach to the community, some of the obstacles that sometimes arise have been overcome and the questions asked by communities have been answered. We need to see a hell of a lot more of that but we must also ensure we can deliver within decent timeframes.

When I was a member of the transport committee, I remember dealing with one of the agencies involved in delivering our transport infrastructure. When the committee went into private session, it was a story of just talking about wind energy and asking where in Europe we were going to get somebody willing to put money forward for a big wind project. Let us say there are people willing to put €150 million down to deliver entirely necessary infrastructure, follow the planning conditions and ensure they achieve them. The agency in question is not sure it will be able to deliver, however. This is the system we have had to date and we need to move beyond it.

An Bord Pleanála has made bad planning decisions, which have been challenged in the courts. Unfortunately, in the majority of these cases, the courts have upheld the judicial review. This comes down to bad planning decisions, increased litigation and significant delays with planning decisions. None of this is good. As I said, Sinn Féin is willing, like many others, I am sure, to work with the Government to achieve that fit-for-purpose system.

A significant number of NGOs and other stakeholders have spoken about particular issues they have identified with this legislation. I have spoken to planners who are worried about how this legislation will impact on the ability to deliver development plans at the local authority level. There is a real need for us to get to the nub of all these issues and deliver.

Earlier, someone from the benches opposite uttered the line that we have all used about how wonderful it will be when Ireland becomes a wind-power superpower. However, we must ensure we get the planning aspects into place. Otherwise, none of this is going to happen. Rather than us saying we are ten years behind, we will instead be in a situation where we will be even further behind, again and again, and very much failing. Delivering on wind energy and renewables crosses many strata. We must ensure we have the capacity to deliver the electricity, the power, we need. We must ensure we are decarbonising and moving into the realm of renewables, from an environmental point of view, and putting ourselves in the place we should be in from an energy security vantage point.

We know Ireland has the capacity to do this on a wider scale. Once we have fit-for-purpose planning legislation and all the required infrastructure from EirGrid and other organisations, we will be able to change the power map of Europe. That will be a real game-changer. We are all aware of the particular issues with providers of the fossil fuels and other things we are still addicted to. We need to make all the necessary moves.

Regarding interaction with the Government, the only way we are going to find out about this is to see what happens in the next while when we get beyond this point. We have here one of the longest Bills in the history of the House. It has been delayed more than once. The review launched early in 2022 was promised by September of that year, to be followed by enactment of the legislation by the end of that year. As it turned out, the first incomplete draft we dealt with was not published until February this year. We all finally got sight of the current version of the Bill last week. Some people were lucky enough to get a paper copy but others were not and we have been using the control F keys an awful lot as a result.

Some 30 hours of pre-legislative scrutiny were carried out. Representatives of NGOs, planners and many of those who work in the field spoke about what needed to be done in this area. The committee recommended more than 140 changes. Our view is that there is still a hell of a lot more that needs to be done. We will see whether the Minister has listened to experts, communities, industry and all the other parties involved in this area. I do not think anyone will disagree with my view that this Bill is not ready for the road and a significant amount of work remains to be done.

Do not get me wrong; we fully support the move towards a plan-led approach to planning developments but that must involve everyone, from the local authorities to elected representatives and communities. They must have the full set of tools and resources to develop good quality, 3D plans. We welcome the fact that we are talking about urban development zones and that there is a more flexible replacement for the strategic development zones. For some time now, planning conditions and so on have meant we have not had the flexibility required to allow us to produce what is needed by the communities out there and meet their particular requirements. We can stop and start in relation to everything from business infrastructure down to the provision of housing and, as Deputy Martin Browne said, ensuring we put plans in place to provide a transport infrastructure that will work for us in future. It is as simple as that.

Rather than repeating what everybody else has said, I will say that this is significant legislation that promises a lot. We know what it needs to do. We know we need a system that has to be fit for purpose. We know we need to be able to deliver for the people out there. We know we need to be able to deliver big infrastructural projects. We saw the madness we are dealing with in the "RTÉ Investigates" programme the other night, which showed that people having commodified or found the means to make money from the planning system. That is in no way beneficial to residents or the people involved in some of these sorts of planning developments. I think we were all sickened but not, unfortunately, shocked by what we saw.

We all know the other issues that exist. We could talk about the problems the OPW has in delivering flood defences. Again, there are instances sometimes where this is used as an excuse.

We understand the State is responsible for delivering on the planning conditions and constraints in that part of the country. We need to make sure that happens. We cannot have people being negatively impacted by flooding conditions that could be rectified by mitigation and flood projections but that cannot be put in place because of certain spurious complaints, observations or obstacles being put in the way of necessary infrastructural projects that need to be dealt with.

The fact remains that it needs to be ensured that we can engage communities and ensure they have the right and ability to put forward observations. We cannot have vexatious observations that can hold up things for too long, which obviously impacts financially on those involved. Sometimes the easiest thing for people to do to date is to pay somebody off. That is not good in any way and does not serve any of us. They are the sort of things we need to deal with and it is straightforward. We need a system that works for everybody inside and outside the House. We need to deliver on the infrastructural, residential and transport projects we all require to make Ireland into the best place it can possibly be.

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