Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is often said that rushed legislation, or rushed amendments to legislation, leads to bad legislation. We have seen this time and again. Regarding the amendments included here, which have not gone through the fairly rigorous process we had at the Oireachtas Select Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, where are we going? We spent hours, days and weeks going through this Bill. To be fair to Deputies Ó Broin and Cian O'Callaghan and others, they tried to bring forward solutions because we know this Bill is a vital piece of legislation. It seems as if the Government is getting it wrong. Even though I might not agree with Deputies Danny Healy-Rae and Michael Healy-Rae, we are disagreeing with the Government. There are concerns right across the Opposition. I encourage the Minister to take some of this on board.

The key to planning is public participation. A new estate was built in Kerry Pike in my constituency. Kerry Pike is a village that has doubled in size so they built a new estate and put the footpath on the wrong side of the road. Can you believe that? You would not see it in "Father Ted". You look up the road by the Ballycannon monument right by the primary school in Kerry Pike. The housing estate is behind the primary school and the footpath is on the other side of the road.

Hundreds of houses were built in Ballinglanna in Glanmire. You would want to see this estate. Hundreds of houses have been built but the parks, playgrounds and green spaces that were supposed to be there were never delivered. The developer put them in the planning application. Someone mentioned earlier that this Bill was developer-led. If it is going to be any more developer-led than what we already have, we are in big big trouble.

We have a situation now in Blackpool in Cork. There are planning permissions left, right and centre for apartments but what is not going in? There is not one green space. The next time the Minister is in Cork, if he can give me one hour, I will walk him through Blackpool, if he wants to know about planning and not involving people. They are lashing up apartments and bedsits everywhere but here is the thing. Blackpool is probably a working class area. They would not get away with this anywhere else because in more affluent areas there would be professional people who would be able to take legal cases against what is happening in Blackpool. Hundreds of apartments are going in there. There are no playgrounds, crèches or public spaces. A vulture fund came in and bought up a block of apartments. There was supposed to be a shop there along with a pharmacy and a doctor. The doctor had to move out because the vulture fund would not renew their lease after ten years. That meant the GP went, along with the physiotherapist and the mental health specialist. Why? It is because it is a working class area. Planning does not work in this country for ordinary working class areas.

As a last example, they built a brand new prison in The Glen a number of years ago. Cork City Council brought out a very detailed document on why this planning permission should not go ahead. The people of The Glen did not have €120,000 to get an injunction or a judicial review so what happened? The prison was built. There is one law in this country for developers and speculators but for working class people there are no protections. That is why we need strong public participation. It is so that everyone has a voice.

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