Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I have no doubt about his interest in and passion for proper and sustainable planning, which is shared by many Members on this side of the House. We have concerns with regard to how the Bill has been handled. The Minister of State referred to putting us on notice that the Bill would be heavily amended as it passed through the Houses of the Oireachtas. I remind the Minister of State that when the Bill was initiated in the Seanad, it consisted of 40 pages. It generated quite an amount of debate and Members on this side of the House, as in the Lower House, have concerns about the autonomy of local authorities and the powers of the elected members of local authorities. These are elected on a five-year basis and are closest to the citizen in the governance system. By the time the Bill arrived before the Select Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, it had increased to 124 pages, a considerable amount of additional substance. I accept that much of this is necessary and is a requirement under EU law. The Minister of State said it is important to address shortfalls in our legislation to ensure Ireland is in compliance with EU law regarding the habitats directive. I understand that but I consider that the information was readily available when the Bill was initiated. Perhaps the Minister of State can clarify if this is the case and why we did not have the information when it was initiated.

Today we have a substantial book of amendments, with more than 120 pages of amendments in addition to the 124 pages discussed in the Select Committee on the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. A substantial portion of this Bill was guillotined through the Lower House without any debate or proper analysis and consideration. As the Minister of State is aware, Members of this House do not get an opportunity to make further amendments at this stage. Moreover, they do not get an opportunity to vote on the amendments but are more or less obliged to accept them as the Minister of State submits them to the Seanad in report.

As Members go through the amendments, I will have some comments to make for the public record. At the outset, however, it appears as though this is quite a substantial Bill that I accept to be necessary in many ways to reform the planning systems and processes to reflect the current and modern needs of society for a sustainable planning model. I will be the first to acknowledge that serious mistakes have been made in the past from which one must learn and many legacies have been left behind by bad planning practices, management and decisions. However, one must be careful to avoid trying to crack the nut with a hammer. There are ways to remodel the planning system to ensure full engagement from local communities and to give them the say in the system the Minister of State claims to be providing. Fine Gael is concerned that in many ways, this planning Bill will manage planning in the future with a top-down approach and that the bottom-up approach is being abandoned to a large degree. This is evident in many areas, even among local authorities that at present are adopting city and county development plans. Even though this Bill has not yet been enacted, the Minister of State is aware that the management of many local authorities already are engaging with it. While that may be as the Minister of State prefers, they are acting as though the Bill is already in place. Many local representatives, who are elected by the citizens on a regular basis and who are accountable to those people for decisions made in those communities, have serious concerns about the Bill's substance and the impact it will have on smaller towns and villages in particular. As I will outline later, a hierarchy is being created through this legislation that more or less will sideline many smaller towns and villages and will take away their ability to exploit their full development potential. This is a genuine concern I outline on behalf of many people to whom I listen and who represent local communities.

The Bill is based on the national spatial strategy, which I consider to be a good model. However, having been in place for eight years, it needs to be reviewed and no analysis of its impact has been conducted. Moreover, it has never been adopted by the Oireachtas but is a Government model. While I acknowledge it contains much that is good, it must be analysed closely to ascertain how successful it has been since its inception. While this issue can be teased out further, I argue that it has not been as successful as intended in some areas and this certainly must be reviewed and analysed to ensure a proper model.

As for the group of amendments under discussion, I accept that many of them are technical in nature and that Ireland is required by European law to comply with them. Only last week it was necessary to rush through emergency legislation on the compulsory purchase order process to prevent a potential exposure of the taxpayer to a significant amount of money with regard to the Galway city bypass. I am aware the Bill contains provision for this matter and that it had passed all Stages in the Dáil. When enacting legislation, one must be careful that any law passed must work for the benefit of society and the people who live within it. Ireland must comply with European law pertaining to special areas of conservation, which I support. However, it is a cause of great concern in rural Ireland, which will be most affected by such directives on habitats, and the deeper consequences and implications of such directives on rural Ireland remain to be seen. Obviously, it will not have the same impact in the city, apart from protected structures and institutions. However, people have been living in rural Ireland for many generations and I suggest they are the people who care most about the natural environment in which they live. Nothing in this legislation should impinge on how they wish to continue to live in rural Ireland. Obviously, existing dwellings in rural Ireland will remain in place but there is grave concern that on foot of this Bill, the building of new houses will not be allowed in any local authority area in rural Ireland. The Minister of State might give Members his views in this regard because were this to be the case, there would be serious problems. This also is a matter that can be discussed further as deliberations on this Bill continue.