Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his engagement today. I hope we will continue to have meaningful engagement and that we will not guillotine or close down this debate. There are some imaginative ways in which we can look at our schedule next week. I have some in mind already, which I will bring to the House on Monday so that we can prolong this debate. It is good we are having it because it is a very important debate.

The Minister of State has made a very valid point on the scope within the national planning framework. We are speaking about empowering the elected members of city and county councils. Ultimately, it is not the planning regulator who makes recommendations but the Minister. The regulator publishes reports. This is very important. I am conscious the Minister and the Minister of State are political individuals and this is great because they have come up through the local government system.

This goes back to the point I made on Senator Fitzpatrick's excellent amendment and tracking and tracing, following up and engaging.With that, we need to empower the elected members because many of them feel slightly daunted. In my local authority, the planning regulator has made recommendations and ultimately it is a matter for the members to discuss them and see them through, but it is a question of what does one decide. Clearly, the logic suggests one would down zone places that should never have been zoned in the first place, which do not have critical infrastructure, water or whatever, are halfway up the mountain, halfway the other side of the M50, and where there is no connectivity to a town or anything. Senator Pauline O'Reilly talked about that 15-minute town space, which is what we are all getting to. Covid has sort of forced a bit of that on us. I am walking everywhere now, for instance, to shops where there is no need to drive for a bottle of milk, or I am cycling. We are getting to know our local communities. We are getting to know our people better than we knew them because we have this connectivity within this 15-minute space north, south, east and west.

It goes back to that question, which is for another day, of how can we empower our elected members and give them the confidence, tools and knowledge to challenge the executive and make it accountable too. It is not one versus the other. It is both, but somehow that is the missing link. Many elected members say they do not have the necessary skill sets or supports, including independent planning, financial and legal advice. It is not individual advice but the corporate advice for the elected members on the local authority as we cannot have everybody look for advices. That is an area we need to address.

I agree we should encourage local authority members to actively and robustly engage with the planning regulator. There is no point in having stand-offs. The planning regulator is there and doing a job. After all, the planning regulator is doing the job that these Houses empowered him to do. Let us remember there is no point in bellyaching in these Houses about him. No doubt he is doing what the Oireachtas charged him to do. The planning regulator is a man of immense integrity with vast experience in planning and local government. Therefore, we must find the scope within the legislation and empower local authority members to challenge those issues and see where we can come from. Clearly, independent expertise is where the shortcoming is. Despite what we might like to think, elected members do not always get the support of the executive and that is a pity sometimes.