Michael Kitt (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister to the House for this interesting debate. I take Senator John Paul Phelan's point that there is a connection between agriculture and housing matters. Like Senator Bannon and other colleagues, I recently met with the Irish Farmers' Association. I found it interesting that the IFA's representatives did not have the doom and gloom approach to which Senator Bannon referred. They raised three issues with me, namely, capital gains tax, land leasing and compensation for road development. Those are interesting matters, given our pre-budget discussions. This debate is relevant, particularly as we are always talking about having discussions on planning matters. The proposals made by Senators Brennan and Bannon are well worth examining.

I am interested in the definition of the word "local", which is something that exercised our minds on Galway County Council for many years. Many councillors think we should not use the word local at all because one can argue the case along other lines. One may talk about someone being local to an area but many of my colleagues on the county council have argued about people being in a particular parish or school catchment area. It is disappointing that the rainbow of councillors on Galway County Council, of which Senator Bannon's party is the largest component, has now decided that "local" will mean eight kilometres or five miles from one's home, which is very restrictive. It was much more flexible before the last review of the Galway county development plan. The Minister, Deputy Roche, and his predecessors have been trying to give people an opportunity to live in their native areas, an idea which the Fine Gael amendment supports.

Senator John Paul Phelan referred to pre-planning meetings. Some councils use the excuse that they cannot talk to an applicant because an application is before the planners. While this does not seem to be the case in many counties, it is unfortunately so in Galway where no discussions can take place while a valid application is before the county council. That rule is wrong and should be changed. We are all in favour of having more planners. In addition, I hope the Minister will address the question of An Bord Pleanála in his reply to the debate. It does not matter to me whether we have one board or two but we need an explanation as to what exactly is going on. It is difficult to comprehend some decisions that are being made and this inconsistency is causing great frustration for many people.

I note that the costings for the 2005-07 County Galway water and sewerage investment programme add up to almost €500 million or half a billion euro. It is a huge programme and I compliment the Minister on his achievements since taking over his current portfolio. There is a huge volume of work to do next year.

I wish to ask the Minister about the issue of bundling applications. I was in favour of the design-build-operate model with one contractor being responsible for a number of schemes but I am beginning to have second thoughts about it. I have seen some very large schemes being bundled with small ones, which means that the latter schemes are held up. In County Clare, colleagues of mine have said that their town was bundled with two towns that needed a foreshore licence. I realise that this matter is not the Minister's responsibility but that of the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources. I believe that the application process for foreshore licences can take up to two or three years and, if that is so, I hope we can unbundle such applications. We should examine the possibility of having separate applications for foreshore licences to avoid such problems arising in future.

I welcome this debate which has given us an opportunity to discuss planning matters. We could go into many other issues concerning rural housing but I hope this water and sewerage programme will be implemented. It is important for the development of towns and villages where people wish to live but have not been able to do so due to a lack of investment. We now have such an investment programme. If the Minister achieves the co-operation of the local authorities, we will also have sustainable rural housing development.