Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I am so grateful to Senator Quinn for sharing time with Senator Norris. It is always very worthwhile. Apropos of the plain people of Ireland, those who have their dinner in the middle of the day and tend to vote for Fianna Fáil because they are plain, simple and wise people, we housed 90,000 of them last year. Whatever other failures we may have, while we might quibble about where they have gone, we have built five times more houses than other nations in Europe. Our rate is four times greater per capita than the United Kingdom, a country that is undergoing what is called an emergency housing programme. Whatever else we have failed to do, we have not failed in the housing area.

Senators may make the fair point that we have issues with urban sprawl. It is a pity that Senators were not cognisant of what I did last week when I used powers never previously used by a Minister in the history of the State, precisely to prevent this type of profiteering and this outrageous scandalous and entirely counterproductive planning. To suggest that Fianna Fáil is somehow beholden is somewhat disingenuous and, in the circumstances of last week, is very difficult for me.

However, I thank the Members for giving me the opportunity to speak in this debate. In particular, I thank the Progressive Democrats. It is important to propose ideas that we can debate. My friends in the Progressive Democrats are almost being provocative in the sense that they know that more than any other Minister, I have a particular personal aversion to quangos.

The Government recognises the strong tradition of Irish people living in rural areas. Even if Senator Norris does not recognise it, in reality 40% of the people live in rural areas. We should not force those people into what I call the European Environment Agency's short-sighted, blinkered and imperfect view of planning. I remember walking across a hillside in County Wicklow with Jacques Delors a number of years ago. He commented on how wonderful and idyllic it was that children could grow up in a rural background with a father who could make part of his living from farming and could also, as he did, commute to the city to work. He said that as far as he could see, that was as close as it was possible to be to an idyll.

We need to learn one thing, which is that we do not always get it wrong. Senator Quinn was correct and generous in saying that when travelling abroad, people ask how this small country in 20 years could move from the position that existed in 1987, when Senator Bannon's party last relinquished power after a full term in office and when we were the basket case of Europe. We had 71,000 people working in the building and construction industry. Today, because of the Government's policies, we have 250,000. We had people fleeing the country and now we have people coming here, which is wonderful. They enrich us. They are part of us and are making the country a better place. How could anybody suggest that this country is in some sense a failure when the reality is otherwise?

We must realise that there is no prescriptive, one-form-fits-all approach to planning. We have a different system of settlement which must be recognised in any planning debate. I congratulate the Progressive Democrats Members, who are trying to get to the essence of the debate on what we are trying to and need to create. I read the EEA report and have had heated conversations with Professor McGlade. I do not agree that the EEA has it right and argue that it has it wrong. To suggest that we should shove everybody into towns would be a disservice. It would be desperately damaging to the fabric of Irish life. I do not agree that we get it wrong. We do not always get it right. A little humility in Irish politics goes a long way. We certainly make many mistakes. In the planning area, I challenge anybody to say we always get it wrong.

There is a strong tradition of living in rural Ireland, which I celebrate. I come from a town and am quintessentially an urban person. However, having a countryside populated with people is incredibly enriching. Otherwise we would have something approaching a desert. I do not agree that the kinds of settlement patterns in this country are in some way inimical to planning. I will certainly not take a lecture on planning and housing from people who come from countries that have created urban disasters. I believe there is a fundamental problem in planning. Far too much of our thinking about planning is informed by some sort of urban idyll, when I believe an alternative exists. I support a strong progressive local government system that has at its core the right to plan and develop. I support well-managed local decisions taken within a policy framework as set by local authorities. I take issue with Senator Bannon in that regard. The Senator was correct when he said planning must be informed by the national spatial strategy. He said also the strategy must be informed at local level by the regional planning guidelines and incorporated into local planning. I do not want to be particularly partisan but the Senator's colleagues in Laois took disgraceful action in the past six months when they attempted to overturn the national spatial strategy and the regional planning guidelines. They forced me, as a strong defender of local government, into the invidious position where, for the first time ever, I had to issue an order overturning a planning decision by local councils. I was more than surprised when the Senator's party put Charlie Flanagan out to defend that on the national airways because it was an indefensible decision. I ask the Senator's party to review that position. I was pleased to hear Senator Bannon say he sees the logic of the national spatial strategy and the regional planning guidelines.

I say to Senators who took the view taken by Senator Norris, in his own inimitable and charming way, on rural planning guidelines that the sustainable rural planning guidelines were put in place to ensure we have sustainable development in rural areas. A total of 40% of our people live in rural Ireland and we should not force them to live in urban areas. We should try to encourage them to live in their own areas but in a way which is sustainable. That is the essence of the rural planning guidelines.

The guidelines include a presumption in favour of quality one-off housing in rural communities provided proposals meet normal standards. The guidelines require the overall presumption to be applied to the actual local needs of a community. The guidelines are very subtle in that they recognise there is a variety of rural areas that requires a difference in the approach. The planning authorities are required to review and vary their development plans, where necessary, to ensure their policies on rural settlement are consistent with the policies set out in the guidelines. The guidelines are not a desiderata, and I accept Senator Brennan's point that some local authority planners have not copped that. The guidelines are law, not something they can apply if they wish.

I appreciate that many Senators have genuine concerns about the inconsistencies in the manner in which planning has sometimes manifested itself. I agree with Senator Brennan that we need consistent implementation of the guidelines. That is my wish too and we have been addressing that issue. I emphasise that my Department is very conscious of that and I have made that point forcefully in private meetings I have had with county managers. I have made it clear to county managers that I expect them to apply the letter but, more importantly, the spirit of the guidelines. The spirit is not, as Senator Norris suggested, a charter for people to sell off sites. The opposite is the case.

We have tried to bring coherence to the issue of rural planning in the guidelines. We have held seminars to ensure local authority planning staff are aware of the guidelines. In particular the seminars dealt with the preparation of the planning policies, providing better supports and advice, and giving an efficient, comprehensive and good mannered response. I emphasised all of that in my contacts with county managers.

The guidelines set a strong framework but they are not intended to straightjacket planning authorities, for example, by limiting their room to manoeuvre on who can and cannot be regarded as local. I fully appreciate the point Senator Brennan and the Progressive Democrats made that "local" should not simply mean farming or farming stock. I agree with them on that but the guidelines do not do that. The guidelines provide that reasonable proposals on suitable sites for persons who are part of and contribute to the local community should be accommodated. I cannot understand how any Senator could take exception to that. In particular, I cannot understand how a gifted and talented man like Senator Norris could take exception to it. What I said was that suitable sites for persons who make a contribution to the rural community should be accommodated. The guidelines state that examples of such persons would include farmers, their sons and daughters but they do not state that it must be exclusively those categories. They provide for planning authorities to grant permission in cases where exceptional health circumstances arise. I make no apology for doing that and I explained to this House the reason I made these specific arrangements for one-off housing where, for example, there is a handicap in a family.

I was walking through a small village in Meath with a council colleague, Nick Kilroy, and had one of those experiences that one has only because one is a politician on the ground. A young woman approached us and spoke about a planning problem she was experiencing. She was not from the country. She had two children with a very severe condition. They could not live in a housing estate. Mr. Kilroy told me that was a failure of the planning system because that woman could not be accommodated for a one-off house in a rural area. That is why I changed the law. I changed the law because I believe the law should have some humanity infused into it. I made a special arrangement for families facing a special challenge to be given consideration and get planning permission. I put into the law also a requirement that emigrants who return to this country should be given consideration. Generations of people had to leave this country because of poverty. It was their emigrants' remittances that allowed us to build the Celtic tiger. If they want to come back in their failing years and build houses in the countryside where they were reared, we would be a lesser nation if we did not accommodate them. I make no apologies for those comments and make them simply by way of explaining the guidelines. The guidelines are intended, on the one hand, to create a rationality but, on the other hand, to infuse a degree of humanity into the planning system.

Promoting sustainable rural housing in a way that works for communities should be at the core of planning, particularly in non-urban areas. In the guidelines we have tried to create a new template against which planning can and will be facilitated. The key objective is to maintain a vibrant rural population while respecting and consolidating the traditional forms and the patterns of housing development in areas, for instance, where there are clusters of housing. In the stronger rural areas the guidelines corporate development policies build on the strengths of those areas by striking a balance. That is why I struck down the planning abnormalities in Laois last week.

With regard to the proposals in the motion, it was courageous, rather than opportunistic, of my Progressive Democrats colleagues to bring those forward. I do not accept they were opportunistic. We should debate issues in the open in a more mature way.

On getting local authorities to do the job correctly and applying the rules consistently, it is proposed that we should have a national monitoring committee. As everybody knows, I have an aversion to quangos but there are practical reasons this approach might not be the correct one. The central thesis is that a central advisory committee would be best placed to deliver better decisions. It would be difficult for a national body to be able to intervene in the more than 33,000 planning applications for one-off houses. That is the level of one-off housing applications. Senator Norris was wrong when he suggested this was a minority problem. A total of 33,000 applications were made for one-off houses in the past year. I understand what the Senators are suggesting and I respect their views but it would be difficult to effectively replicate the planning process by having a committee that would oversee all of that, and it would be difficult to get the focus right.

I would be concerned also that a body like the one proposed would merely replicate the functions already performed by the Minister of the day. I may be faulty as Minister of the day but I am not unconscious of the concerns about rural housing. There is a danger that functions which properly should be under the charge of the politician who is answerable democratically would be replicated. That is my personal objection to and difficulty with quangos, as they are commonly referred to. We must be careful before going that route. The creation of new bodies is often put forward as a proposition in this and the other House but any such proposition requires a good deal of assessment.