Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I will finish my contribution, and the Minister can come back to me. I am delighted he will confirm that today because one of my key objectives was to elicit from him whether people can transfer from a strategic development zone to the fast-tracking process.

There are 31 local authorities. I am sympathetic to the argument that this is anti-democratic, in breach of the Aarhus Convention in terms of public engagement and has various constitutional concerns. Local government is enshrined in the Constitution. The Minister is Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, and I would expect him to strengthen the role of local government, devolve more power from central government to local government and support councillors and the executive, which is one arm of local government. Councillors have an elected mandate and are another arm of local government. Councillors have told me that more power has been taken away from them.

The Minister will correctly argue that councillors do not have many planning functions, but they do. They have more than one would think. They are involved in the county development plan process, local area plans and strategic development zones.

An Bord Pleanála is contravening development. I will not cite a particular case, but in south county Dublin two weeks ago it overturned the key objectives of an area plan. It has the right to do so, which the Minister's officials will confirm. Council officials can, in certain circumstances, contravene a county development plan. The Minister needs to strengthen the rules. No board should be able to contravene a county development plan. I want the Minister to bring forward legislation on that.

I will table a number of amendments next week. I have prepared them and to be helpful, I will try to send them to the Minister's office as quickly as possible. They include strengthening democracy for councillors. There is no reference to statutory engagement with councillors or a statutory process in the Bill.

The Minister proposed that there would be a fast-track process to An Bord Pleanála. There will be no appeal system. The citizen is being cut out of the process. At least in the current system, one can pay a €20 fee - we might discuss fees later - and have a right of appeal to An Bord Pleanála. Third party appeals are being dropped. No doubt the Minister will tell me there can be a judicial review of matters, but that costs a lot of money. We are talking about engagement.

A very substantial judgement from Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness refers to the role of the county development plan as a contract with the people. This ruling has never been undermined or challenged - it is case law. It refers to a contract with the people in regard to county development plans. I printed off 35 cases on challenges to county development yesterday, all of which referred to the same principle, namely, that the county development plan is a very powerful instrument. People have a legitimate expectation and right to know how their communities are being planned and developed. I do not know whether the Minister's officials will address my concern.

We know there are over 4,000 people in emergency accommodation in the State. It is not something of which we should be proud and we need to address the problem. Winter is upon us. We have had a very mild winter this year. I do not want to be Dublin-centric, but Dublin is a key problem. Dublin City Council, according to the Minister when I last spoke to him at a meeting, is supposed to deliver three new projects before Christmas, comprising 200 units. The Minister might share progress on that. There is one month to go.

We want transparency and to open up government. The Minister, through the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, launched an open up government dialogue, which is on the Government's website.I am not sure if this is the answer.

The Minister spoke about a sunset clause of three or five years at most. Is he serious about this? Is he prepared, for example, to give an undertaking that it will be set at three years rather than five, given that it is a temporary measure? If 47,000 housing units are built within three years, will he wind down the measure or continue to crank it up? While I fully respect that he is entitled to maintain the measure, we must keep decisions in local communities.

Planners in local authorities are asking whether staff will be seconded to the board. Will the Minister address that issue? The public service recruitment embargo has caused a decline in the number of local authority staff and some councils no longer deal with pre-planning applications. I have received tonnes of mail from developers who cannot secure pre-planning meetings with local authorities. The Minister knows that the issue is one of resources because his Department has written to the chief executives of local authorities asking them to address the problem and speed up the process, but local authorities need money to recruit staff.

While it is great that the Minister proposes to fast-track housing construction, my concern is that the process appears to lack transparency and is anti-democratic and that the legislation does not enshrine statutory rights for members of local authorities who are elected by communities to run local authorities in conjunction with the executive. Will the Minister meet us halfway by setting out how he proposes to strengthen the role of local authority members? That is the weakness of the legislation. It is easy for me to speak about anti-democratic decisions, a lack of engagement, breaches of the Aarhus Convention and the famous High Court case. While I like the Minister which helps in politics, support him in principle and do not doubt his integrity or commitment, he has been a member of the Government for the past five years. As such, none of this is new and the problem did not fall from the sky. Will he meet us halfway by addressing the democratic deficit that is of concern to local councillors?