Feargal Quinn (Independent)

As we are talking about blaming local authorities, yesterday the chairman of the planning board blamed local authorities for the huge waste of money that is occurring because of planning permission being given on motorways. Motorways were designed for long journeys but instead, to a very large extent, they are being used by local authorities to put shopping centres or business parks alongside them. This means they are being used for short journeys. The reason I raise this issue is that the chairman of the planning board has said this is a wake-up call and that the money that has been spent on motorways could be wasted within ten years unless something is done.

The chairman gave a briefing on An Bord Pleanála's annual report yesterday. This report is worthy of serious investigation. Another aspect to which the chairman referred was the large number of planning appeals that are not being dealt with in the statutory period of 18 weeks. I am sure this is owing to a shortage of funds. Only 53% of planning appeals are being decided on within 18 weeks. I assume this problem can be solved with more money but whatever is the cause, we should be doing something about it.

When we make a decision to spend money on roads, we appear to work only normal hours on those roads. In other countries the digging up and closing of a road is considered as a costly exercise for the nation as a whole, whether it be in time, petrol or whatever else. We only use eight hours per day to repair roads while in other countries they use 24 hours to repair them and the work gets done in one third the time we spend. I am not sure how we solve this problem. It is not necessarily the remit of local authorities or the National Roads Authority but it is something we should address. We should look at the overall cost of closing roads.