Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the principle of the Bill. When the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, spoke on the Bill, he stated:

I am pleased to bring the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2009 before the Seanad. If there is one clear point to be made about planning, it is that planning is about people, not buildings. Good planning can bring enormous benefits to individuals and communities.

I concur with what he said and it is an important point. As someone involved in public life, planning in rural areas has been close to my heart for 25 years. At some stage we must grasp the nettle. Planning in rural areas is a quagmire, loaded with flawed policy and inconsistencies. As a public representative and a former member of a council for almost 19 years, some 80% of my time was taken up making representations on such matters. There has been, unfairly and unjustly, prejudice against people living in rural areas and participating in the parishes and communities in which they grew up, which they cherish and love. In this case I refer to genuine local needs, not someone from Dublin who is moving to the Sheep's Head Peninsula or Connemara. I am talking about local people who want to acquire a site from their uncle, aunt, father or brother. Unfortunately, when I spoke to colleagues as a Deputy and as a Senator, I noticed that the position varied from county to county. In some counties the system is much easier. Isolation will be further compounded by the impossible position of young couples seeking to obtain planning permission and live in rural Ireland. The position varies from area to area, which is most unfortunate.

I am not much of a racegoer and was never at the Galway races or in the tent. I might have been at the races in Killarney or Listowel once or twice. At the Aintree Grand National meeting great race horses and jockeys negotiate a very difficult course which includes Beecher's Brook, the Elbow and the other fences and jumps about which we hear so much. From my experience, I would have as much chance of obtaining planning permission in parts of rural Ireland as I would of surviving the Aintree Grand National course riding an ass or a donkey. It is a terrible system under which one must beg with planners but each planner differs from the next. One must also speak to the engineers but in the case of some 60% of the planning applications eventually approved, I had to beg the county manager to bend the rules. I am not talking about big developments but places such as the Mizen, Sheep's Head and Beara Peninsulas. People should be able to live in their community, if they wish. That is why I quoted the Minister's comment that planning was about people.

In Crookhaven, at the end of the Mizen Peninsula, almost 90% of houses are holiday homes. I recently dealt with a person who could not obtain planning permission, despite the presence of holiday homes. A few years ago an American who visits every three years objected to a local man and his wife who had one child receiving planning permission on the Sheep's Head Peninsula. The school in the area, Rushnacahara, had 13 pupils. I asked the county manager to visit the site, although he should not have had to do so. I explained that if the population were to drop further, the school would close. The American was listened to all the way up the line, including by An Taisce, whereas the local couple who had received a site from the man's brother could not receive planning permission. The county manager was in the area on a Sunday morning and facilitated me by examining the site. This is typical of the cases I have encountered during the years. It is absolutely crazy.

Some regulations come from national Government and others from the European Union but we are hampered by the rules and regulations dealing with special areas of conservation and scenic landscapes. Parts of Ireland have been spoiled and damaged by bad planning. I would consistently like to see good planning. If family members want to live in the community in which they grew up rather than in a city 70 or 80 miles away, whether they play football or hurling, they should receive preferential treatment. Trying to obtain planning permission is like trying to pull a tooth from a duck. It is a waste of resources. I have spoken to people in other political parties who spend 80% of their time in county hall dealing with applications for planning permission instead of important issues of policy for the county. They must hop from one planner to another to try to resolve rural planning issues.

The Minister of State comes from a rural constituency and I ask him to address the matter. I am emotive about it because I have put so much time and energy into it but I do not see the position changing or improving. Huge, rushed developments have been constructed in towns and villages in my area, some of which will be taken over by NAMA, while others will remain an eyesore. Very few applications are for rural one-off houses, in respect of which a couple has obtained a site but cannot proceed further. In this regard, I want to make it quite clear I am 100% supported by groups such as Macra na Feirme, Irish Rural Link, the IFA, the ICMSA, the Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers Association, the ICA and many other country groups that have made this point from time to time.

It is an absolute wrong and injustice that An Taisce has any involvement with one-off rural planning and I make this point very forcibly. I have made it previously on national radio and on RTE television. I do not state that An Taisce should be abolished. It was established in the early 1980s and I believe the Minister at the time was Dick Spring. His motives were honourable and it has a role to play. However, at present An Taisce is obliged to be notified of all planning in rural areas throughout Ireland.

I have been in politics for 25 years and I could not name two members of An Taisce in west Cork. However, consistently it shoots down planning applications because once An Taisce puts its name to an objection the county manager shivers and quakes. There is a serious bias in An Bord Pleanála — I state this in public — in favour of An Taisce and against local people. I am not discussing the wealthy American, Dubliner or German who comes in with loads of money and wants to build in the Sheep's Head or Mizen Peninsulas. I have no truck with them and good luck if they get planning permission. However, there seems to be a huge difficulty with local people. Legislation should be changed to make the situation such that An Taisce has no role to play in rural planning. Such a role was never intended when it was first established.

An Taisce certainly has a role in protecting our heritage and I give it that but there is a lack of transparency, whether it be in west Cork, west Kerry or Donegal. It is not fair that members of An Taisce in west Cork object to developments in Donegal, Mayo and, on one occasion, a golf course in Clare. On another occasion, people from Mayo — I do not know who they were — objected to a mast in the village of Leap in west Cork. The people there had no reception for some RTE stations — I am not discussing Sky or any other such channel — and building the mast was held up for seven or eight years. The objectors were listened to. I am not sure whether the issue of those who object to planning applications for spurious reasons is covered in the Bill but we should examine it. We must seriously examine whether an American who comes to the Sheep's Head every three years for three weeks or somebody from the Beara Peninsula who is retired and from another jurisdiction can object to a fish factory in Donegal or a golf course in Clare.

The Bill has some very salient features and in that regard I compliment the Minister of State but it does not address the real issues facing rural Ireland. Sustainable development is mentioned and I know from coming from a peninsula, having been born on the Sheep's Head Peninsula, that there is a decline in population in the Kilcrohane western end of that area of 30% over three census figures. That gives an indication of decline. Almost 90% of Crookhaven is made up of holiday homes. The locals who want to raise their families there, whether they are involved in fishing, cheese making or are small farmers, have to jump through all types of hula-hoops.

I can recall only very rare occasions when somebody was awarded planning permission holus-bolus with the conditions within the two month period. Those occasions are the exception to the rule. Inevitably permission is either refused or deferred for further information. All types of road blocks are met and one planner varies from another. The lack of consistency and guidelines in rural planning is an absolute disgrace. The Minister of State might well state the issue is at local authority level but I do not agree with that. I have spoken to Members from other counties who——