Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I warmly welcome the Minister and congratulate him on his appointment. He was an outstanding Minister of State with responsibility for European affairs. Given his particular background in the Civil Service, public administration and local and national politics, he is an extraordinarily well-equipped Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and I look forward to the impact he will have.

I must declare an interest in this discussion as I have a brother in the planning profession in County Cork. I am not my brother's keeper, nor he mine, and our views do not always coincide.

The national spatial strategy is important in facilitating development outside Dublin. Development is starting to spread away from the main centres. I am beginning to feel it in Tipperary, especially in the south, in some of the towns other than Clonmel.

There are extraordinary development pressures which in turn put a great deal of pressure on planning offices to work very late to cope with demand. We have record levels of housing and construction. There are also other sorts of developments and these need to be examined.

We have discussed whether there should be a break between planners leaving planning offices after a short time and taking up consultancy work. This was discussed in the context of the central Civil Service.

Senator O'Toole made the point regarding eight million people living in Ireland. In the 1840s people lived and worked in situ and did not have to commute to work. We will have to cope with a much larger population than we have now, but it is a different problem from the great problems that existed then.

The key is pre-consultation between planners and applicants. That works well in some counties in terms of problems being ironed out and people knowing what to expect. In Cork County Council, for example, the architecture department has produced a book of models for one-off housing in the countryside. If one is chosen from among these several dozen models, it may help to reduce planning difficulties.

I am a little alarmed by the degree of ideological conflict. At one end of the spectrum is the Irish Rural Dwellers Association which effectively seems to be saying that all planning should be eliminated and most planners are foreign in any case.