Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister to the House and I welcome the opportunity to speak on this Bill. It is probably one of the most crucial Bills to come before the House in this, or in any other term. In respect of some of the Bill's aspects, Senator McCarthy put his finger on it when he noted that it will not affect quite a number of issues. He cited the second terminal at Dublin Airport, which is not delayed by planning issues. Similarly, planning issues have not held up the roll-out of broadband, which has been an absolute disgrace, as we are light years behind some of our eastern counterparts.

Moreover, this Bill would not have affected a critical piece of infrastructure for the development of County Mayo and the towns of Castlebar and Westport, namely, the Castlebar-Westport road. Hence, the Bill will have no part to play with regard to many infrastructural projects throughout the country, the progress of which has not been held up by its absence.

I want the Minister to spell out to the House in detail how the legislation will work. As someone who has served for 25 years on a local authority, I am puzzled as to how it will work from the initial lodging of a planning application to the final deadline when planning is granted. I am uncertain of the merits of the Minister's proposal to give power to An Bord Pleanála. He intends to increase the number of its board members from seven to nine and has outlined the various bodies which can nominate people. In addition, the Minister can add a number of people and in the final analysis, eight or nine people will serve on the board.

As legislators, Members will vest these nine people with considerable power. In future, they will make the decisions pertaining to critical pieces of infrastructure. When I first heard of the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Bill, I assumed that local or regional authorities would play a significant part in fast-tracking planning applications. However, that does not appear to be the case. From my reading of this Bill, a planning application will go directly to An Bord Pleanála.

In my experience as a local authority member, in some cases when new roads were being designed, the local authority identified three to five potential routes. Subsequently, the local authority members decided on a particular route on the advice of officials. What will happen in future? Will An Bord Pleanála decide the route for a road from Castlebar to Westport, Athlone to Galway or Naas to Cork? Who will pick the route? Will the application go to An Bord Pleanála after the route is picked? When will the project be fast-forwarded to An Bord Pleanála? It strikes me, from reading parts of this Bill, that local authority members will have little say in the matter.

I noticed that Senator Norris has welcomed the Bill because of what happened in the 1990s, mainly in Dublin, in respect of taking money for planning applications and so forth. This happened in Dublin because of a lack of forward planning. Officials did not bring development plans and area action plans before council members. Subsequently, material changes to development plans were introduced and councillors were obliged to make decisions in that respect.

However, had proper forward planning taken place, this would not have arisen. While many planners are employed in local authorities, most of them are tied up with matters such as sewerage scheme applications, how they might affect the housing plan, and whether their access to roads is on national routes, county roads or whatever. Too many planners are engaged in such activities and not enough staff work in forward planning.

The majority of local authorities have few planners working in this field. More people are needed in this respect and had this been the case in the 1980s, it would have cut out much of the nonsense that happened in the Dublin area. The events of the 1990s would never have happened. Hence, I want the Minister to provide a detailed outline to the House of the progress which a planning application coming under the auspices of this Bill will make from the first to the final stage. How will local people be able to make their input into that process?

I have encountered people who have been aggrieved by planning decisions. All Members know of such cases. I can cite a case which took place in my home town of Castlebar in respect of a bridge improvement on the national secondary route from Castlebar to Ballinrobe, which aggrieved people. In the case of one particular household, if it snowed or if the ground was slippy, they would neither be able to drive out nor walk out of their driveway. When we went back to redress this with the local authority, we were told in no uncertain terms that the household concerned had people working for them, they went to arbitration and at that stage there was nothing the local authority could do.

Debate adjourned.