Déirdre de Búrca (Green Party)

I welcome the Minister of State and the opportunity to debate the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2009. This is very important legislation of which the Green Party, particularly the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, can be very proud. If I have any regret it is that the Bill is only being introduced now, after a huge amount of damage has been done by irresponsible planning policies during the Celtic tiger period. It is unfortunate that, when the property bubble was inflating and we had a huge amount of development across the country, we did not have legislation such as this. Instead, we will be left with the legacy of irresponsible planning, something of which we will become aware during the NAMA process, when white elephants in the form of rezoned land which never had development potential and apartments, built in rural areas, which were neither necessary nor in keeping with the local landscape, will become apparent.

We will have to face up to the irresponsible practices which reigned during the developer-led boom. I hope this legislation ushers in a new, smart era of planning. The relationships of economic renewal, development and proper planning are very strong. If we plan according to proper criteria we will encourage economic development. One of the purposes of the Bill is to ensure that the national spatial strategy, a rational plan for how we roll out infrastructure across the country, will be consistent with regional planning guidelines and development and local area plans so that there will be synergy in the various levels of planning.

Having been a county councillor on Wicklow County Council for eight years during the development boom, I was always struck by the lack of synergy in the national spatial strategy, strategic planning guidelines for the Dublin area, county development plans and local area plans. While higher level plans, such as the national spatial strategy and regional planning guidelines, required local councils to have regard to the overall strategy, they seemed to completely disregard it and drew up development and local area plans as though they were free to zone wherever they wanted according to their own rationales, instead of following a more coherent national approach in line with the Government's commitments to both physical and social infrastructure. In the case of Wicklow, there was massive over-zoning of land without the infrastructure to back it up. Land would be zoned regardless of whether there was a commitment to provide the necessary infrastructure and the price of the land would shoot up as a result. The individual or developer who owned the land benefited significantly but it contributed little to the proper development of the county. The process of drawing up development and local area plans in Wicklow was ad hoc and based on who knew whom and who had a word in a councillor's ear to exert pressure.

It would not be tolerable to continue that approach to planning so this Bill, into which the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, has put so much time and thought, is very welcome, even if it would have been much better had it been produced during the life of previous Governments when the building boom was at its height. In his analysis of zoning patterns around the country, the Minister has concluded that enough land is currently zoned to provide development land up to 2075. In their enthusiasm to zone land, certain councillors provided for a population which will be here long after those councillors have passed away. It is important to build some headroom into a local area or development plan, but the year 2075 is 66 years away. Rezoning enough land for six or seven decades, when the lifetime of a development plan is five years, is ridiculous.

The Bill before the House will require that local authorities have an evidence-based core strategy which underpins their development plans. In other words, they must have a sound evidential basis for the development plan and for the housing strategy which examines population trends to ensure it is based on realistic projections. The Bill will also ensure there is total consistency between local area development plans, regional planning guidelines and the national spatial strategy. It will result in a more focused land use strategy, which is badly needed. More focused land use strategies will result in a more efficient use of taxpayers' money by allowing the State to target more accurately investment in essential infrastructure and services.

It is to be hoped the Bill will mean we will have a more compact land use strategy, which will help to ensure the proper provision of physical and social infrastructure. As we are aware, there is a lot of infrastructure that needs to be modernised and developed, including waste water treatment facilities. We also need schools, community facilities, roads and public transport infrastructure. I hope that the proper, coherent planning envisaged by the Bill will make it more feasible for Governments to be confident about investing in public transport in future. We need to bring public transport up the standards we can see in other countries, including many EU member states. We will not be able to do so, however, unless we ensure planning and land use happen in a focused and reasonable manner, based on proper population projections. Scatter-gun, ad hoc development makes it very difficult to plan for proper infrastructural provision.

The Bill will result in stronger management of land zoning. It will ensure the location, amount and phasing of land zoned for development is more closely linked to the Government's economic policy, including the national spatial strategy, regional planning guidelines and capital investment programmes for national infrastructure.

There are other positive elements in this legislation. I note that the making or variation of a development plan or local area plan will now require the support of two thirds of the total membership of a planning authority instead of a simple majority. I am delighted to see this. I recall debates being held between councillors who wanted to promote a particular zoning about whether to go for a material contravention or a variation. Very often, the variation was chosen because it only required a simple majority of councillors. In discussing land zoning, we must ensure a significant majority of elected members of a council support a zoning according to clear criteria. For that reason, this change in the legislation is welcome.

The legislation will ensure that only minor amendments will be permitted to draft development or local area plans which have been the subject of public consultation. That is a welcome provision. In my own experience of local area plans and the Wicklow county development plan, such plans go on public display followed by a reaction from the public and developers. However, very often at the last stages of a development plan, elected members would introduce large-scale rezoning which would be thrown into the mix late at night. Planners often had to work hard to try to have those zoning proposals modified or thrown out. It was an inappropriate practice, but the Bill will ensure such practices no longer happen.

Ministerial guidelines will have greater legal force under this legislation. In all the statements that go into a development plan, the local authority will have to show how it complies with the guidelines set down by the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. The powers of local authorities to refuse planning permission to applicants who have been convicted of serious breaches of planning legislation are strengthened under this Bill. In addition, the use of e-planning will be improved and made more widely available. In this day and age, we need a greater use of e-planning which will make the planning code more efficient and sustainable in the long run.

I welcome the Bill and congratulate my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, on introducing it. It is substantial and important legislation that will ensure proper planning for years to come. We must put the past behind us and hope that from here on, once the Bill is enacted, we will see the right kind of planning in this country.