Michael Moynihan (Cork North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak, and I welcome the Bill. It is a fundamental piece of legislation and has been a long time coming. The volume and depth of the legislation shows the challenges that are right across the planning issue in urban and rural Ireland. There have been many thoughts in the contributions by many Members over the last while regarding serial objectors to planning, and people objecting to planning who are many miles, and hundreds of miles, away from the location. That is fundamental. There is almost a begrudgery or a sense of, "We know it all, so we are going to put in an objection". We have seen the serial objector to forestry roads, forestry felling licences and forestry thinning. By and large, he has brought the forestry industry to a standstill by his objections to it, and caused massive difficulties for the forestry industry because sitting in his plush south Dublin home, he was able to put in objections right across the country. That is happening with housing development as well. We have to ensure that if there are objections being put in, that objectors have skin in the game, that they are near it and that it is impacting directly on them.

We have had a number of issues in planning, and the way planning has developed. The last planning and development Bill that was before this House in the early noughties was to reform existing planning. In the earlier stages of it, it did ensure that there was planning. However, now we have it tied up. If one is building a once-off house in the Duhallow region, or as the Minister of State would be quite familiar with, the Charleville region, there is a large amount of regulations they have to go through in comparison to eight or ten years ago, regarding environmental issues and so forth. We had planning that was granted by the local authority back seven or eight years ago and it lapsed because of one thing or another, and then we cannot reactivate that planning permission because the local authority says it is in a flood zone. We have seen the challenges with flood zones in different parts of the country over the last 12 months and I understand that. However, if there are areas of the country that are going to be designated as flood zones, they must genuinely be so. There must not be an abstract circle or corridor drawn around areas, in some instances miles from the water stream, never mind where the flood plain is. The hands of officials are tied and they are saying it is a flood plain, so therefore they cannot touch it.

I have one instance, which is a very genuine case, and the flood plain was drawn. Now the flood plain has been deactivated because they looked at it again and saw the error of their mistakes. However, because this notion is out there in the ether that there is or was a flood plain, they are very slow to move on it but it is very important that it is done.

We had very welcome news about the development of the M20 from Limerick to Cork last Monday week, and the progress that is being made by TII, headed by the offices of Limerick County Council. Along that route, people have gone for planning permission, and it has been held up because it was a study corridor or region of interest due to the road. Now we have seen that they have exactly identified the 200 m corridor that is going to affect it. There are people who are living and working there, some of them working on farms, some in the communities. It is a strong industrial place, with a lot of work and employment. They have gone for planning and it has been held up. Everybody who is interpreting planning legislation and law has to be very mindful of the part they are playing in ensuring people have a connection to or are going to live in that community, that there is going to be a population increase in that community, and that it is not just of the book but that there has to be a social cohesion aspect to planning as well.

How is it that in some instances, some planners can take a different interpretation of the exact same law or term of regulations? We hope that this legislation will streamline it in such a way as to make it uniform. Of course, I see the Ceann Comhairle shaking his head in utter-----

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