Mark Dearey (Green Party)

I second the amendment to the motion tabled by Senator Glynn. I do not want to do down many of the relevant points made by Senator McFadden and all previous contributors, but we must recognise the fact that the Government has stepped up its efforts to deal with this issue. The expert group has been meeting - I understand it met today - and its proposals will be presented to local authorities within weeks. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, who has a particular interest in planning has also stepped up his efforts to address problems such as that mentioned by Senator Prendergast, namely, the relationship between planning and the economic collapse, which is an accurate analysis. The flip side of over-lending was the supply of unsuitable land which far exceeded actual demand.

Planning issues played a major role in the collapse of the economy and, in a way, this is the untold story of the collapse of the Celtic tiger. Those charged with oversight and enforcement of planning regulations and those in whose hands planning and zoning decisions lay must be fully examined. The roles of councillors and planners, as well as planning law, local area plans and county development plans, all contributed to what has been a catastrophic collapse. There is no point in saying this as part of a blame game, but it does need to be recognised. Reform of the planning system must be seen as the flip side to banking reform; there is no point in doing one and not the other. They need to be done together and they have been.

The Labour Party motion which calls on the Government to step up its efforts to address issues in the area of housing misses the point. The Government has stepped up its efforts. The new Planning and Development (Amendment) Act has been passed and local government reform is under way. Alignment of the national spatial strategy and regional planning guidelines with county development plans and local area plans has taken place. The rule is no longer that those drawing up such plans must have regard to the superior planning document but that the plans must be in compliance with the superior planning document. This is a small change - a few words - but they will have a significant effect. The Government has also stepped up its efforts to address the issue of ghost estates by insisting that in the future planning and land use must be based on evidence of need and that this evidence must inform a core strategy which cannot be deviated from - if it is, the Minister of the day will have the power to intervene. There are many ways by which the Government has increased its efforts to address the legacy of ghost estates.

The code of practice soon to be published by the expert group will focus initially on estates in which people are living but which have large numbers of unoccupied units, which is reasonable. These constitute roughly 1,000 of the 2,500 unfinished estates. The rest - pre-developed sites, hard fill areas, areas in which drainage works were done and nothing further happened - all require a high level of expertise to deal with them. After a developer goes bust, how does a local authority return the area that was being built on to visual acceptability? The area may be 20 acres in size, with a road through it and a herringbone drainage system. What can the council do with these lands? Should it return them to agricultural use or wait for an upturn in housing demand? These are complex questions which require professional or expert advice. I do not think a rushed response would necessarily be the right one. There is a need for a case-by-case analysis and set of recommendations, but the guidelines must be clear and consistently applied.

I commend the amendment to the House and look forward to publication of the code of practice. I applaud the changes that have taken place. I take on board the need for instruments to be applied to release securities and bonds if that is what is required. Like Senator Hannigan, I am aware of all sorts of difficulties in finishing estates because of the financial arrangements that have been left in place being very difficult to realise - bonds beyond the reach of local authorities and insufficient bonds to meet the instatement of roads etc. All of those issues ring true with my experience of ghost estates and the local authorities' problems. I am pleased the expert group has that as a high priority.

On the issue of landlords coming into the RA scheme or the social housing leasing initiative, there is a kind of twilight zone involving people living in rental accommodation. Many landlords who have not declared themselves as such and continue to avoid coming into the full glare, are doing themselves a few favours while doing their tenants none. There is a wider issue regarding inferring the same rights on the person living in the rented home as a home owner would have. That is a longer-term project that should be occupying our minds. We should seek to find legislative instruments to encourage that parity between the home owner and the person who chooses not to own a home but to rent it.

I commend the amendment. I believe the Government has stepped up to the plate regarding the ghost estates and that the motion, while worthy in intent, misses the point of what the Government has been engaged in in recent months.