John Dardis (Progressive Democrats)

I second the motion. I thank the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, for coming in to take this debate. Given that he is a busy man it would have been easy to have sent in his Minister of State. I endorse what has been said by my colleague, Senator Brennan, and put it in context.

As a country we have enjoyed unparalleled growth in recent years. Some 20 years ago when the Progressive Democrats were founded the unemployment rate was 17%, whereas now it is only a fraction of that and we are not faced with the prospect of people having to take the boat. We are in the happy position of looking to other countries to provide us with labour we cannot provide from within our community. While those people are welcome they have put demands and pressures on local authorities just as the growth has done, particularly in areas around Dublin. I would be more familiar with what has happened in Kildare where there has been exponential growth in recent years in terms of people coming to live in the county and the pressures on the infrastructure and the attendant pressures that brings to local authorities.

Companies such as Intel, Wyeth and Hewlett Packard have come to Kildare. The disposable household income in the county is greater than €17,000 per annum and is above the disposable household income for the nation as a whole. The population has increased to 164,000 with the attendant increase in two seats in the county. As the Minister is aware from his own experience in Wicklow where he was a member of a local authority, this has put huge pressures on infrastructure and services, schools and so on.

I can recall vividly that 12 to 15 years ago when one tried to argue the case for a school extension one was told about demographics, that the population was declining and that there was no need for the extra facilities. Those of us in the counties near Dublin said that did not apply to us. Even then the population was increasing. There are pressures on waste disposal but there has been a huge improvement in that area as money is being put into these services. It was the case that local authorities were major polluters. I had an experience in my area where the local angling clubs successfully sued the local authority for pollution from the sewerage system. Frequently inadequacies in waste water treatment were given as reasons for not granting planning permission. That is much rarer than several years ago.

I will not go into the area of nitrates and I am sure the Minister would prefer we left that issue to one side. Local authorities were more significant polluters than agriculture and were exempt under much of the legislation. That was not correct.

Recently Oireachtas Members had a meeting with the county manager in Kildare. There have been 27,000 separate planning applications in Kildare during the past ten years. That is obviously far more in terms of houses. There were 3,368 applications in 2005, of which 550 were domestic; 250 commercial; 1,000 were one-off and 136 were major residential developments. There is, as the Minister is aware, huge pressure on the planning departments. As there has been a major improvement compared with when I was a member of the local authority the appeal is that it would be provided with sufficient staff and sufficient expertise to deal effectively with these applications.

The increase in housing supply has been a key response to the range of housing needs. At the most recent meeting in Kildare, figures were presented to us by the county management people indicating that 312 houses are on site in the housing capital programme, pre-planning is to start in 2006 for 236 units and pre-planning of 170 is to start in 2007.

There has been progress but I was disappointed to see the figures on social and affordable housing. In this regard, I would have expected Part V of the Act to have kicked in more significantly by this stage. Under the social housing heading there have been only 12 allocations, and under the affordable housing heading there have been only two allocations. These figures are much lower than anybody expected and, consequently, there seems to be something wrong.

The other issue of significance concerns the considerable growth in housing development and the attendant road infrastructure problems. Increasingly, small county roads are being used as access roads to housing estates. Beautiful estates are being built and marvellous roads are constructed to their edges but at the end of these roads one hits what are like craters on the moon because of the building work.

Consider the degree to which local authorities are vigilant about muck on the roads and dust on the roads in summer. If a farmer left mud on the roads after cutting silage or lifting beet, he would soon be told to clean up his act, and rightly so, yet it seems that some builders can do what they like. A ring road was being constructed around Newbridge recently and the local authority was very attentive to its responsibility to keep it in reasonable condition, but the same degree of attention is not evident where there are private builders involved.

This leads on to the issue of enforcement. The worst offenders, who offend repeatedly, seem to get away with their actions, thereby undermining the whole system. Those who are compliant ask why they should comply when Micky Joe or builder X got away without doing so. I was made aware of the really surprising statistic that there were 800 complaints to Kildare County Council for alleged unauthorised development last year. This is a very significant number and, therefore, there needs to be a meaningful way to stop those who do not comply with the guidelines. In a recent case, in which a person erected an unauthorised extra storey on top of a development, the objectors had to go through the whole process with their case. By the time one does this, however, the developers have the blasted building built anyway. They seem to be able to get away with it.

There is an insatiable appetite for water, which is understandable because householders need it, but an ever-increasing volume is being taken from the River Liffey. It has reached the point where it is unsustainable and the river is suffering badly. Many years ago I suggested to the county engineer of Kildare County Council that we could get our water from the Shannon on the basis that we have a way-leave all the way to that river in the form of the canal. I was told at the time that this was not technically possible, but, lo and behold, Général des Eaux produced a report on the Dublin water supply and mentioned my proposal as an option.

Something meaningful will have to be done to find an alternative to the supply from Ballymore Eustace. Measures have been taken to stop the very significant leakages from the antiquated public system. Approximately one third of the water was being lost therefrom. Regardless of the measures being taken, the taking of water from the River Liffey is unsustainable and would not be tolerated in any environmentally aware society.