Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I add my full support to amendment No. 27, tabled by my colleague, Senator Boyhan. I formally second the amendment. It is a very sensible amendment. Questions have been raised about the balance of power between the executive and the elected councillors. Councillors have reserved functions in areas such as finance, planning, budgeting and capital spending but they are not able to adequately enforce those powers. As many of my colleagues have already said, this amendment is about opening up the decision-making process to transparency, openness and more accountability.

One of the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal, which was addressed in the 2014 Act, was around the powers of councillors to be able to influence planning decisions. Unfortunately, the powers to direct a planning matter under the former section 140 were, admittedly, abused. Effectively, councillors had less democratic power over the council executive in directing the decision-making process. The way that amendment No. 27 is crafted addresses this aspect in a very sensible way. It directs the area manager to consider the variation of a development plan, where 75% of the elected councillors have voted to approve such a resolution. Democratic accountability and openness are tied into that.

The concerns of the Mahon tribunal were around the capturing of councillors by developers. It was absolutely right that those concerns were addressed by the Department. It does not mean, however, that an individual council chief executive can bring forward an amendment to a development plan as one person recommending it. While I do not suggest that it is happening, chief executives and ordinary people can get captured by developers as well as elected councillors. If accepted, the proposals in this amendment would be much safer than the current system because at least the decision is made out in the open, it goes before a full council meeting and 75% of the elected councillors in that area must vote to approve it. The amendment would bring a lot of improvements to the table.

I hope the amendment is acceptable. It has been suggested that it could be reviewed after 12 or 24 months. It is a sensible amendment and if we are serious about strengthening local democratic accountability for people, then I believe this is the best way forward. Development plans can very often have a tenure of five years and we have seen how the economic cycles of the State dictate whether or not those development plans are valid at any given time. In Dublin there is a need to rezone land for housing and perhaps councillors cannot initiate that process of their own accord. This amendment would allow them to do that. It is a sensible amendment.