Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister and thank him for his engagement to date. I have taken on board what Senator Coffey said, but the Minister is here now. This is his opportunity to perform, to prove himself and to deliver on pre-consultations and engagement with councillors, Senators and Deputies. It is all very well to talk about what we will deliver and then to be told, as we approach the door of this Chamber, that the Minister is not in full agreement. If the Minister is not in agreement, he argues his case on the floor of the Seanad. If we are unhappy, we argue our case with the Minister. Many councillors are tuned into the webcast of this debate because they are aware it is taking place. They are concerned, and rightly so, and they will not apologise. I am a former county councillor. I know the planning process intimately. A former member of An Taisce, I have been involved on both sides of the planning process. There is an area in the middle where we must get compromise and agreement.

I will not come in here and bellyache and then do something contrary to what I have said. I will not oppose this section of the Bill. It is my absolute intention to support it. In this section we propose to give legislative effect to the action plan for housing and homelessness. The Minister has outlined in the action plan a requirement for 47,000 houses. There are five pillars and 84 key objectives in the action plan, and the Minister was brave enough to put timelines on them. Some of them have slipped, not all through his fault, but no doubt we will catch up. We look forward to the next quarterly report. The Minister has already given us a report on the deliverables of the plan. However, we have a housing crisis. It is all very well coming into this House, a council chamber or anywhere else to talk about a crisis. If we have a crisis, we must do something about it. The crisis did not arise yesterday. The Minister is very well aware, as is Senator Coffey, of the dynamic and the problems that have faced housing for a number of years and of successive Governments that buried their heads in the sand. I acknowledge that the Minister is doing something. The action plan might not all go well but it is a start and a positive. It has a timeframe and deliverables. We as politicians will be failing if we do not haul the Minister back through the Seanad and the Dáil and ask questions about what is and is not happening.

I have said it to the Minister before and I say it now on the record of this House. He will be open to criticism that this is an undemocratic process because it does not engage with people. Local councillors represent people. The Minister is aware of the Aarhus agreement and the obligations to engage with communities and citizens and recognise their elected representatives. He is aware of the Supreme Court case in which Mrs. Justice Catherine McGuinness found that a county development plan was a binding contract with the people. That is it. Everyone has a legitimate expectation to go into his or her county hall, of which there are 31, look at his or her county development plans and see the map-out and the plans for a whole range of envisaged services and infrastructure. That is everyone's right. People have the right to consult. They have the right and expectation to have some comfort in the knowledge that planning will evolve as per a county development plan, subject to most things being right, such as money, resources, planning applications, economic prosperity and development.

What are the criticisms of the Bill? I want the Minister today, or during this process in the next few days, to come some way towards demonstrating that he has met people and tried to address some of their amendments, even if it be a slight adjustment of an amendment. I do not want to hear Ministers coming in here and not listening to very basic matters. I set out originally with 16 amendments to the Bill; today I have two. On some of them I was reassured by the Minister's officials - I will not go into it now - that they could be dealt with through regulation. The Minister needs to explain that at some point today. Elements of the Bill will be dealt with such as, for instance, the fees. Who pays the fees? What fees are to be retained by the local authority in the course of an application? I have spoken to a number of senior planners across the country in the last few days. They have a concern that they will lose revenue because of planning applications. However, the Minister can address that today and tell us whether that is the case.

Regarding Senator Coffey's remarks, An Bord Pleanála has contravened, and continues to contravene, county development plans, which is within its right. The Minister has enormous powers to make directions regarding county development plans. Senator Coffey would be fully aware of that from his previous position in the Custom House. We might talk about a county development plan as being supreme. Let us face it: what are councillors? They do not have direct input into making planning decisions but by golly, they are the guardians and custodians of a county development plan. That is fair. The House should remember that local government was enshrined in our Constitution by a referendum of the people. That is clear. We recognise constitutionally the role of local government, the right to engage and the right to represent diverse communities with different and conflicting opinions. My concern is with An Bord Pleanála.

The Minister could do two or three simple things, which I will tease out when we come to the relevant sections. For instance, he accepts and acknowledges that local councillors have a democratic mandate. They have vast experience locally. He could, for instance, decide that elected members of councils would not be charged any fee to make an observation to An Bord Pleanála regarding the planning applications that come onto the system. I call on the Minister to make this decision. I do not do so to give politicians favourable advantage. I do not suggest such a provision for Senators or Deputies; I only suggest it for county councillors in recognition of their special mandate. I also suggest that a special statutory meeting of the local authorities take place. It should be statutory so the public can attend the meeting. Most council meetings are now broadcast by webcast, although the public galleries are still open. It is a public process. We must be careful about the quasi-judicial functions of planning because lobbying legislation is in place, and rightly so, to which we would have to have regard. We must tick the boxes of openness and transparency. The Minister could, in this legislation, empower and direct county managers and chief executives of councils to have a public, open, statutory council meeting only to brief the elected members on the proposal that they will submit to the board. I am not suggesting a long, protracted meeting with long minutes that need weeks and months to approve, amend and change. That is too archaic. That is why I am not suggesting that. I initially suggested that the approved minutes be submitted. It is too archaic and is too long a process; it goes on and on. It is not easy to get 40 councillors to agree on what they said and did not say. It is more important that the Minister allows a statutory council meeting to take place.

Finally, the Minister should look at the planning fees again. This is about openness and engagement. They are currently €20 to a local authority. I do not know what the Minister will tell us or what he is in a position to tell us today about the regulations. At this juncture, I wish him well. I want to support the Bill but I also want him to demonstrate in this process in Seanad Éireann that he will support some of the reasonable, well-articulated and well-argued amendments. He needs Members' support in this process. I do not think anyone in this Chamber, Dáil Éireann or any council chamber does not want to address the housing crisis. The Bill is only one aspect of it. The Bill is weak on openness, transparency, accountability and the recognition of the legitimate mandate that elected representatives have. Let us not have rushed legislation. Rushed legislation is bad legislation. It is interesting to note that within a relative few days of his publishing the Bill, the Minister has tabled a substantial number of amendments. I do not know from where they have all come. Am I to believe they are part of his engagement process or am I to believe that they are tweaks by the public service to put matters right? In any case, there are a lot of amendments for a Bill that has only been published a week. I look forward to engaging in the entire process.