Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Senator for raising this issue. A properly functioning planning system is of critical importance in ensuring development across the country takes place in accordance with the principles of proper planning and sustainable development. As in everything, balance is key in who gets to make representations and the kind of representations they get to make. In that respect, transparency is key. If we are to accept that people can make representations, we want to know who is making them and why. Potentially we have a great opportunity to have a lengthy debate on different planning issues as we have the Chamber to ourselves, but I will stick to the issue raised by the Senator, in the first instance, the establishment of an office of planning regulator.

As the Senator is aware, this afternoon the Minister of State, Deputy Damien English, will be in the Seanad to take the Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill 2016. The Bill contains the required legislative infrastructure to allow me to establish the Office of the Planning Regulator which was, as the Senator pointed out, an important recommendation of the planning tribunal. The office will be independent of my Department and responsible for the independent assessment of all local authority and regional assembly forward planning, including the zoning decisions of local authority members in local area and development plans.

The Office of the Planning Regulator will evaluate compliance with relevant national and-or regional policy, including the forthcoming national planning framework which will also receive statutory underpinning in the amendment Bill. Among the functions set out in the Bill, the planning regulator will be empowered to review the organisation, systems and procedures used by any planning authority or An Bord Pleanála in the performance of any their planning functions under the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended. It will also be enabled to consider complaints from members of the public.

The planning regulator will have the power to advise the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government whether a plan made by a local authority conflicts with national planning policy. In the interests of transparency, any such advice will be published. The Minister will then make the final decision on whether a direction should be issued under section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and he or she will be accountable to the Oireachtas for his or her decision in that regard. The planning regulator will bring an additional layer of transparency to the planning system, while maintaining democratic accountability which is essential for public trust.

My Department has been progressing administrative matters in setting up the new Office of the Planning Regulator in so far as it can without the legislation being in place. In addition, I am sure the Senator will be pleased to know that funding for the office in 2018 has been secured. In the budget for this year we secured funding to set up the office, staff it and enable it to get its work under way.Once the Bill has completed its passage through both Houses and has been signed into law, which is due to happen in the next couple of weeks following the Seanad's consideration of that Bill, my Department will then be in a position to proceed with the implementation plan to set up the new office which involves the recruitment of the new regulator through the Public Appointments Service, which, as the Senator knows, can take a couple of months, and putting in place the staff he or she will require to carry out the functions of the office appropriately. Once the appropriate administrative steps have been taken, I will be in a position to determine when to establish the office formally.

Given what we are trying to achieve in reforming our planning system, the huge ambition we have for capital investment over the coming years and the new national planning framework which is being developed, it is very important that the office is set up without delay. Funding is in place for the regulator. Once we have passed the legislation we can then move to the public appointments system to have the person appointed through that system. We can then set up the office with that person and later in the year we will formally open the office and it will begin its work. By then we hope the different regional spatial economic strategies will be well developed by the three regions concerned. The different city and county council plans will flow from that.