Paschal Donohoe (Fine Gael)

I move amendment No. 10:

In page 26, line 31, after "guidelines" where it firstly occurs to insert the following:

"or county or city development plans and local area plans,".

I suspect the intention of my amendments, Nos. 10, 11 and 12, is exactly what Senator Ryan was seeking to achieve in amendment No. 9 which has been ruled out of order. This goes to the heart of the difficulty I have with this Bill.

If we consider the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008 which we debated in the House after its introduction by the Minister, we can see that the major progress made by that Act, leaving aside the work that was done with regard to the licensing of bus and transport services within the greater Dublin area, was to create the capacity to integrate the decisions that are made regarding the planning of land at local authority level with those made on transport planning. For the first time in our history, those two powers were integrated in the greater Dublin area. Probably the single greatest planning mistake in our recent history was the fact that these were not previously integrated. That is why we now find that cars are being used so much more than we want them to be.

My amendments seek to ensure the capacity of the new national transport authority to deliver such integration is exactly the same as that of the Dublin Transport Authority. The Dublin Transport Authority Act provided for these decisions to be integrated by allowing the DTA to become involved in the development of county and city development plans and make observations and recommendations on big planning decisions such as areas plans. However, from my reading of this Bill, I believe such provision is not included in this legislation. The Bill will create a two-tier planning environment. In the greater Dublin area the DTA has the ability to make recommendations and observations at the level of county and city development plans and to integrate transport use and planning decisions, but outside the greater Dublin area this will not be the case.

The Minister's colleague made two points in the debate last week. The first was that the resources might not be available to sustain such powers and the second was that the new national transport authority will have the ability to make observations on and get involved in regional planning guidelines. With regard to the first of these, we are talking about a power I hope will be used only sparingly anyway because I am convinced local and regional authorities throughout the country know more than anyone else the mistakes that were made in planning. This power should not really be used at all if we have got our act together, but the capacity to use it will exist. With regard to the regional planning guidelines, I can speak from my own experience as a member of a local authority. The regional planning guidelines take account of the county and city development plans and local area plans, but the real decisions, which affect the lives and quality of life of the people we are seeking to serve are made at the level of city and county development plans and local area plans.

These amendments have two broad aims. They aim to give the new body the power the DTA has in these areas but they also flesh this out by providing that the national transport authority would have the capacity to get involved in county and city development plans if it so chose. Otherwise I fear the progress made by the Minister in the last Act, by setting up the DTA and achieving this level of integration, will be weakened because the authority dealing with the rest of the country will not have the same powers.