Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire chuig an Teach chun an Bille tábhachtach seo a phlé. I compliment the Minister on this major legislation which will have significant benefit. The issue has needed to be addressed for some time and the Minister has been innovative in tackling it, particularly through the arrangement for the President of the High Court to ensure there will be designated judges in the court to deal with what are often complex issues in planning. Hopefully the legislation will streamline the process and avoid the major delays we have seen as a result of court cases, particularly those dealing with public projects. These delays have added considerably to the overall costs of projects and been a huge burden on taxpayers.

I welcome the Bill because there is a need for major projects of strategic importance to be considered in a particular way. I have noticed from applications that have come before local authorities that often there is not sufficient expertise within each authority to deal with complex or technical issues. Often there is a reliance on consultants. This is something about which I have some qualms as consultants are not part of the public process. It is undesirable, therefore, to give them a pivotal role in planning applications.

I note that the engagement of consultants can be extended beyond public sector projects to those that come in from the private sector. It is important that there should be a pro bono publico benefit or application to any such projects permitted by this legislation. Straightforward commercial projects that do not serve the public good should go through the normal local planning process with the right to appeal to An Bord Pleanála.

I have a particular concern with regard to environmental impact statements. I have been at the other end of the planning application process on occasion and have seen these statements produced at huge cost by consultants. Consultants will give clients whatever answer they want. I have seen these statements prepared in support of projects and have seen the same consultants prepare a contrary opinion in support of projects of a similar nature. This brings the integrity of the statements into question. A burden is placed on commercial enterprises to engage consultants at significant expense to produce environmental impact statements, often for relatively minor projects. One often wonders whether these statements are necessary. Sometimes the local authority requests them in order to cover itself. This is an area that needs to be examined.

I welcome the general thrust of the Bill which takes the right direction. I hope that on Committee Stage the Minister will be amenable to looking at other areas of the planning code that may need strengthening or simplifying. It is an anomaly that An Bord Pleanála operates to no timescale whereas local government must operate to strict timescales. An Bord Pleanála has a type of "wish" period of four months to give decisions, but there is no statutory compulsion to do so.

With regard to the board, will the Minister look at its function and role? Rather than expanding the board, perhaps he should give consideration to its role in regard to small projects such as extensions to houses. Perhaps he could remove the right to appeal to An Bord Pleanála and include the right to appeal to the local authority. This might simplify the system. A body in Dublin with a national remit that focuses on major infrastructural and strategic projects should not adjudicate on minor applications involved in an appeal process. This area should be examined.

There are other areas and minor issues that could be simplified. For example, if somebody is refused planning permission and reapplies within six months, a yellow notice must be put on the site. It is hard to substantiate the need for it to be yellow. Why can it not be an ordinary notice? On the need for applicants to publish their application in a local newspaper, a simpler approach would be to remove that requirement and, instead, require the local authority to publish the list of applications on a weekly basis. These would be more likely to be seen by the public because people would see them together on one page and could go through them to see if any was of special interest for them. Perhaps the Minister will take this opportunity to deal with issues such as this to simplify the code.