Results 181-200 of 18,761 for speaker:Michael McDowell

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I have been asked whether I read section 58. I read it, but I read on to what happens when a variation is proposed. First, it has to be sent to the OPR for examination. If the OPR decides it contravenes, in the OPR’s so-called independent view, any of the national planning criteria we spoke about earlier the Bill provides that a draft direction can be cooked up by the OPR to tell...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: -----the decision of the OPR.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: When does it happen is the question I have to ask. It is very easy to mutter about this and say it can happen, but it does not happen. The same machine that is in the Department of housing and local government is the parent of the daughter institution, the OPR. They select each other for all these positions as managers, or now chief executives, of county councils. There is a prefecture...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: Can I reply to that?

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: The first amendment proposed by Senator Boyhan and me reflects his reasonable nature. I would be more radical than that. I do not believe in ten-year plans. I do not believe in ten-year plans that can be extended to 12 years. In particular, I do not believe in plans of this kind which are effectively pre-cooked by the Office of the Planning Regulator and, in effect, preordained in large...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I am very glad that we have got to this point of the debate on this legislation. It is time to reflect for a little bit on what is involved in this Bill. This Bill's origins, as I see it, are a project spearheaded in a big way by my successor as Attorney General, Mr. Paul Gallagher, to restate and consolidate the planning law of the country. His office, in fact, took over in large measure...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I support Senator Currie’s amendment. This is simply about notifying the affected community – it can be a small community – where it is proposed to put a line of poles along the side of a road. I have experienced this in County Roscommon. Very reasonably, the broadband contractors notified local householders, including me, about their proposal to erect a third line of...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: The section is not agreed because it extends the ban on producing certificates to certificates that will be issued before this Bill comes into operation. It is retrospective in effect insofar as it catches them. That is why I am not agreeing it, but I am not going to ask for another vote.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I accept what my friends are saying. I do not want to delay proceedings or extend matters by calling for a walk through vote. We have to mark our disagreement with the section as it stands, however, and that must be done by means of a vote.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I note the Minister of State is stepping in in these circumstances. There are a few things I want to say about section 11 but I do not want to overly delay the House.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (Resumed) (16 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I just want to point out that section 11(1) provides that a declaration that something is or is not an unauthorised user is conclusive of the matter stated therein in proceedings brought by an enforcement authority only against the person who requested the relevant declaration. There are two exceptions to that. One is where that person knowingly misled the planning authority, or the...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for attending. I will make a number of preliminary observations. We have decided the Order of Business and I do not want to reopen that discussion. It is slightly old-fashioned to say the Bill is the size of an old telephone directory-----

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: -----but there were such things inside the hall doors of most houses at one time and this could certainly keep the hall door open in a fairly substantial wind. Abridging the time for consideration of this legislation on Committee Stage is not a good idea. Even with the accelerated procedures for clearing the decks in respect of amendments for Report Stage, which are a concession because it...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: It is all very well to do that. I am talking about the Office of the Planning Regulator.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: Sorry, it is section 1, if the Senator would read the-----

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: The Senator would not merely vote to guillotine the Committee Stage but then he started objecting to people who want to talk about what we are actually doing with this legislation.

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I know that and as the Senator is aware, I am talking about the amendment in section 1. I want to make the point that having done all of these things, we are now putting and cementing in place this rigid regime of control over local authority members. It is entirely wrong. The illusion of local democracy is entirely exposed by the Office of the Planning Regulator. That Department, in...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I do not know how this arises on the section as it now is, given that the amendment has been defeated, but in response to Senator Paddy Burke, it seems that to say there is no constraint on what councillors can or cannot propose by way of an amendment to a draft plan or insert into a plan is at variance with the experience of many councillors. Their experience is that the executive of a...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: Section 7(e) states that a material change of use includes "in respect of premises used for retail purposes, a change in use from a prescribed retail purpose to another prescribed retail purpose". Why does a change of use have to be from one prescribed use to another? For instance, if we do not want there to be an absolute right to run a fish and chip shop, why does it matter what kind of...

Seanad: Planning and Development Bill 2023: Committee Stage (15 Jul 2024)

Michael McDowell: I am just saying whatever kind of thing-----