Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in this debate and I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Gallagher, for attending. He is very assiduous in coming to this House and is very cheerful about his duties here. I congratulate the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, on introducing the guidelines.

Of all the duties we have as Members of the Oireachtas, planning issues take up the most time and give rise to the greatest disbelief, upset and tensions within families who simply cannot understand why they cannot get planning permission. These guidelines will open the way to give planning permission to people who should have got such permission long ago.

I have spoken with some colleagues who agree with my thoughts about planning officials. Occasionally local authorities are blighted with planning officials who believe their mission in life is to impose their wishes on the people of the county and have a doctrinaire approach to development, particularly on the question of where houses should be located. Over the years I have spoken to several such officials and two or three stand out in my mind. They had definite socialist principles and were so far to the left that they met themselves coming back. They wanted to impose doctrinaire principles on the planning department that had not previously been heard of.

These planners did not believe it appropriate for a son, daughter, nephew or niece of a farm owner to build a house in the vicinity of the farm. I like the concept in the guidelines of getting together the elected officials, the county manager and planner and local organisations to work out a formula to drive proper planning procedure. We all know that it is not appropriate to have a two-storey house on the side of a lake and that proper sewerage and water facilities need to be available to a potential development site.

Senator John Phelan made a very good point about breathing new life into an area, which I will address shortly. However, there are endless refusals for decent relations of landowners who want to build a house to live in. It is impossible to explain these refusals to them as they get so irate. At the same time they may be able to point to a monstrosity up the road, which was built having received long-term planning permission some time ago before the planners got stricter. This gives rise to the most awful misunderstandings and tensions, which I can fully understand. It is extraordinary that a rural dweller with a chance to get a site at a reasonable rate from a relation to build a house for his or her own use cannot do so. The land belongs to the people, not nameless or faceless people, a term often used, with dogma written on their foreheads whose only wish is to implement whatever ideas they were imbued with in college. The land is for living on and for arable use. People should be permitted to build houses on their land, to live there and to raise their families in decent circumstances. Not everybody wants to build a mansion. Given the cost of building nowadays, I do not know anybody who could afford to build a mansion. Most of the people with whom I have dealt with on planning matters are seeking to build simple houses, usually bungalows. We have all heard about bungalow blitz but that is not relevant now.

Members of the Oireachtas and members of county councils are faced every week during their clinics with at least three dissatisfied people who have been refused planning permission and one or two hopefuls. Senator John Paul Phelan is correct that many rural areas would benefit if people wishing to live in rural Ireland although they have no ties to a particular area, one of the first priorities of the guidelines, were allowed to do so. We have discussed the issue of population decline in rural areas for some time and how we can invigorate such areas. That can only happen if we grant not an over-abundance of planning permissions, but a decent amount of them. There has been a great deal of bad planning in urban authorities. One only has to recall the rows of local authority housing, something from which, thankfully, we have moved away. Such planning was not considered a blight but the unfortunate person living five miles outside a town wanting to build on his site was unable to obtain planning permission.

The guidelines will illustrate to the local authorities and, hopefully in time, An Bord Pleanála, that what the Minister, in conjunction with the Minister of State, has commenced is the right way forward. However, it will require goodwill and co-operation from local authorities to make it happen. The Minister will not encounter problems with the county councils because councillors have been seeking this type of development for a long time. It is important we open up the gate a little so that people do not continue to receive the usual letters as regards planning permission. One often questions, having read such letters, how a particular person could have been refused planning permission. The situation has worsened in the past four or five years in that it has been much more difficult to obtain planning permission.

People lucky enough to have visited another country will be aware of developments there in terms of where people live, yet when one travels around Ireland all one sees is empty fields with no housing. How this impacts on local schools was also mentioned. We are all aware of the pupil-teacher ratio in terms of the retention of teachers. It is right that a specific requirement be laid down in that regard. However, if rural schools are to remain in existence and if people are to have an opportunity to obtain a great education in their local school we must increase the population in these areas.

I recall when I entered the Department of Education in 1987 — I am sure the Minister will remember this — the pupil-teacher ratio changed. The local parish priest in one of the rural areas surrounding where I lived told the people at mass one Sunday to hoist up their buggies the next day, to put every child in the house into them and to enrol them in the local school regardless of whether they were of suitable age.

While I applaud the Minister's work in this regard I hope it will be followed through. Sometimes people have good aspirations and ambitions, as this document illustrates, but often they are not followed through. I am aware the consultative process will not be finalised until the end of April. However, the Minister has clearly stated that he does not wish local authorities to wait until the end of April to finalise the process; he wants them to review the guidelines and to come up with ideas for moving forward. I believe the consultative process is necessary. I agree with Senator Scanlon's point regarding President McAleese, although the issue does not arise in the context of her presidency. Apparently, a man in Cork objected to her building a house in Roscommon. I have never heard anything quite as daft. How could a person living in Cork have a bearing on the decision regarding the building of a house in Roscommon? He could not say he was living near it and that the chimney smoke would affect his eyes or that the traffic would cause him trouble. However, he took it upon himself to arbitrate on where a person should be allowed to build a house. I am aware a revised plan has been submitted and that the build will go ahead.

I wish the Minister luck with the guidelines which have been debated on two separate occasions in this House, bearing witness to the enormous interest in this issue. I look forward to the Minister of State's closing comments.