John Paul Phelan (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I echo the sentiments expressed by Senator White about rural housing. I agree wholeheartedly with her and with Dr. Caulfield's comments about the significance of the dispersed village in rural areas. I wish Dr. Caulfield's proposals were put into practice by more local authorities throughout the country, certainly in the south east. There is an element of crisis in the planning sector among certain local authorities. There has been an explosion in the size of local authorities' planning sections in recent years, due to the significant increases in the number of planning applications made to local authorities throughout the country. In many cases, local authorities are unable to cope with the number and scale of applications they receive.

Previous speakers mentioned the role of An Bord Pleanála in this country's planning affairs. I am glad that a number of Government Senators agreed during this debate with Fine Gael's policy that An Bord Pleanála should be broken into a number of regional boards. There is a strong case for establishing boards to cover the various regions. Senator White mentioned earlier that certain development patterns are peculiar to certain parts of the country. It is not suitable to give overall responsibility for overall planning issues in Dublin city and rural parts of the country to a single body. We should examine the possibility of replacing the current structure with regional planning boards.

All Senators can give examples of inconsistent planning, which drives people mad. We wonder why certain applications were approved when other proposals were rejected for reasons which are difficult to understand. Such inconsistencies drive people crazy. It often strikes me that the intentions of local authority members when they were drawing up development plans are ignored when the plans are being implemented by the various planners.