Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

Clarity is sought on regional authorities and on regional plans. Senator Daly is right that we are putting the cart before the horse regarding regional authorities. Who puts in place the regional draft plans for regional authorities? Is it the county managers or the regional manager? It seems county plans are just fed into the regional plan and that this is how the latter is thought out. There is insufficient thought put into section 7 of the Bill.

Regional authorities do not know what their responsibilities are under the legislation. They are being given significant additional responsibilities under the legislation which the local authorities will have to feed into. There is confusion in section 7 over the production of draft plans, for regional authorities in particular. Perhaps the Minister of State will expand on what he envisages will occur with regard to the expanded role of regional authorities where planning is concerned.

Local authorities are being told they must refer to the spatial strategy and regional plans. Who has an input into the regional plans? Is it just the county managers or is there a draft regional plan put on display which everybody in the region can examine and on which one can make observations? The system proposed is different from the one in operation. We need to know the changes and what they will mean for local councillors and local authorities. How can the observations of the public be processed? We are giving many additional powers to regional authorities and they need to be explained further to everybody concerned.