Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

"condemns the Government for not implementing proper planning guidelines during the recent building boom which has resulted in:

unsustainable communities;

fragmented education facilities;

public transport inefficiencies;

large carbon footprints for residential housing;

and notes that a finalised nationwide approach to planning policy is still required.''

We do not take this matter lightly and the amendment reflects that. Many existing developments that came about as a result of the relatively recent building boom are unsustainable and the lack of proper planning guidelines has led to fragmented education facilities, public transport inefficiencies and large carbon footprints for residential housing. One of the reasons for the latter relates to a lack of Government action in many areas. The horse has bolted and we must now try to deal with the aftermath with more limited resources than we possessed heretofore.

I am surprised we are discussing the draft planning guidelines. I would have hoped that we could have debated the final version of the guidelines in order that we might have identified the direction in which the Government intends to go. I accept this is still a matter of public consultation and that many people are still making submissions.

Previous speakers referred to the resources of local authorities and the planning matters relating to such authorities. In respect of the latter, I wish to refer to estate management and the taking in charge of estates. Local authorities have limited resources with which to work in the context of enforcing proper building standards and regulations in respect of existing developments. What will be the position when they are obliged to enforce the new guidelines? Major difficulties will have to be overcome in this regard.

The draft guidelines refer to community infrastructure. In that context, I wish to refer to schools and a report on RTE news last night in respect of the Holy Rosary school in Dublin, which is literally a prefabricated school. The children who attend Holy Rosary are expected to see out their primary education in lacklustre, poor and dilapidated facilities. That is not good enough. I accept that an attempt is being made to address matters of this nature in the guidelines. As stated earlier, however, the relevant planning structures were not previously in place and there was no collaboration and co-operation among Departments and local authorities. I will be interested to hear how the Minister proposes to improve matters in this regard.

I come from Portlaw, County Waterford, one of the few planned industrial towns in Ireland. It was built by the Quakers, is designed in the shape of a hand and contains wide streets. It was completed within 15 years in the mid-1800s and it became home to more than 5,000 inhabitants. The Quakers provided music halls, schools, other educational facilities, a gas works and a water works. Essentially, a private enterprise built an entire town in the 19th century. Now, however, Departments find it difficult to deliver proper and basic infrastructure in our towns and villages.

An application relating to a sewerage scheme for seven villages in County Waterford has been with the Department since 2005. The development of these villages has been stymied as a result of bureaucracy and barriers in Departments, which has prevented them from obtaining foreshore licences, etc. Three years after the initial application, the villages in question still await the provision of a basic sewerage infrastructure.

Guidelines will not deliver action. We must eliminate the red tape and bureaucracy within Departments. Our focus is in the wrong place. We must provide local authorities with proper resources in order that they might make proper provision in respect of planning.

I do not have sufficient time to address the many issues to which I wish to refer. I wish, however, to comment on brownfield sites, which are mentioned in the draft guidelines. Brownfield sites are sites which have been industrialised or where contamination has taken place and there are major difficulties with them. There is a three-acre brownfield site in the centre of the town in which I live which was contaminated as a result of years of dumping of industrial waste. Due to the clean-up costs involved, the site is lying derelict. The site is fully serviced but nothing is being done with it. What does the Government intend to do in respect of sites of this nature?

The draft guidelines are entitled "Sustainable Residential Development in Urban Areas" and suggest a vision for how increased residential density is to be achieved in cities and larger towns. Only five pages of the guidelines and a handful of examples in the manual refer to urban situations. The remainders of both documents are given over to small scale edge-of-town or village developments. If it is a guideline on how villages and towns should be developed, that is fine, and it should be labelled as such. However, although it is entitled Sustainable Residential Development in Urban Areas, only five pages refer to large-scale development.

A proposal to provide high-density residential development in an urban area can have many implications and there are a multitude of international models that may be examined, including Hong Kong, Madrid, Barcelona, Stockholm, Borneo island in Amsterdam and the Upper East Side and Upper West Side in New York. They offer a multitude of examples of how density may be achieved and how neighbourhoods have turned out. However, the guidelines do not mention any international examples. None of the developments which are already in place has been examined, evaluated or analysed in terms of its relevance to the Irish context. We must learn from other jurisdictions with regard to the development of their larger urban centres.

The document shows no understanding of the culture within local authorities with regard to the bureaucracy in planning that I mentioned earlier. The guidelines suggest that there should be more interaction and collaboration between local authorities and, for example, the HSE with regard to medical facilities or the Department of Education and Science in the area of educational facilities. All Senators in this House and all Deputies in the Lower House know how hard it is to communicate with the HSE or the Department of Education and Science on a one-to-one basis, yet here we are asking them all to communicate with each other. It is nice to hear this aspirational idea, but I am more interested in hearing how it will work. Under the current system, which is very frustrating, we find it difficult to get accountability from Departments. I suspect that at times even Ministers find it difficult to get accountability. There is much work to be done here. I and Fine Gael agree with the general thrust of the guidelines. Certainly, improvements must be made in planning. However, the delivery of these improvements is key, not the guidelines. We have had rural housing guidelines before and now we have these guidelines. I am interested in seeing whether the mechanism in these guidelines will actually deliver.

Are these just guidelines, or will there be statutory instruments of which local authorities are required to take account? It is important that when a finalised document is arrived at, it provides for proper co-operation with and resourcing of local authorities. Proper implementation of planning must start with local area plans and then move on to city and county development plans, followed by regional plans, and of course the national spatial strategy, which was already mentioned here. These plans largely already exist and are good. However, they are aspirational. Any Senator, councillor or TD will agree that there is a lot of good stuff in plans that are gathering dust on shelves. We need to see proper resourcing of these plans so they can deliver. If that happens, we can agree that we have good planning and properly resourced communities.