Paddy Burke (Fine Gael)

I wish to speak on this section which is a very important part of the Bill. We should have a land use policy but do not seem to have one across the various local authorities. Economies of scale are needed with regard to some of the issues proposed by the Minister of State, for example, infrastructure such as schools and so forth. Local authorities do not appear to have any real guidelines that stipulate that where a certain number of houses are being built a school and certain other facilities are also needed in the area. We do not have those types of guidelines although we have various others concerning regional authority planning and so forth. In the area of development planning we do not have guidelines in respect of schools and such facilities.

We can consider current development charges which are quite significant and place a severe onus on developers to come upfront with development charges at the beginning for roadways, water, waste water, public lighting and so forth. There are additional costs included in the Bill regarding infrastructure for broadband and schools. Is this to be an additional cost to those already put in place by local authorities? I understand the costs put in place so far are ring-fenced with regard to some of the facilities, as the Minister of State said. It is a reserve function of local authority members to disperse that funding in a manner that is ring-fenced. This is an area that requires a much bigger debate than we are having today.

Regarding county development plans, for land use where areas are zoned, the Minister of State wants planning to be done on a piecemeal or staged basis as land becomes available. This is where one might talk of a school and other pieces of infrastructure to be included. There should be certain guidelines to say that if there is going to be development in an area for houses then schools and accompanying infrastructure are needed. If there is commercial or industrial activity in another section of a town there must be the necessary infrastructure to go with them. Consequently, some land use policy is needed in this section, as are guidelines for local authorities in respect of the specific amount of development that takes place. In other words, if a specific amount of development takes place, there should be certain requirements regarding schools, broadband and other infrastructural items. As Senator Coffey mentioned in the context of flood relief works and schemes, this is where the system has fallen down. All of these factors would kick into play were one to conduct planning on such a basis.

I will return to the issue of development contributions. Does the Minister of State envisage this as another development contribution in addition to the contributions local authorities already have put in place? Were that to be the case, as Senator Coffey correctly noted, it would place an enormous cost on those who intend to buy a house. Moreover, first-time buyers would be the purchasers of the majority of such houses. Second, development charges for commercial activity would be enormous and are already quite significant. In fact, the charges have become so ridiculous that they have put off development in many cases. If this issue cannot be dealt with in the section, it should be revisited. Alternatively, the Minister of State might revert to the House on Report Stage with some guidelines.