Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 15:

In page 7, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: “(4) The planning authority shall ensure that the elected members of the Local Authority, Area Committee or Area Committees (established under section 50(1) of the Local Government Act 2001) or municipal district in respect of the area or areas concerned, in which the proposed large-scale residential development would be situated are notified of the LRD meeting and provided with a copy of the documents set out in 32B(2).”.

I will speak on amendments Nos. 15 and 16 exclusively. I will not talk about amendment No. 27. This comes to the kernel of it all. I have never made any secret of the fact that I strongly advocate on behalf of city and county councillors. That is something on which I pride myself and I think I do reasonably well. I have a lot of engagement with councillors from all parties and none. This again goes back to the representations that the AILG and LAMA made to the Oireachtas joint committee. I wish to single out Councillor Anne Colgan, in particular, who made a very strong case on these two amendments. It is worth taking the time to go through them. Amendment No. 15 deals with the LRD meeting itself. It suggests the" planning authority shall ensure that the elected members of the Local Authority, Area Committee or Area Committees (established under section 50(1) of the Local Government Act 2001) or municipal district in respect of the area or areas concerned, in which the proposed large-scale residential development would be situated are notified of the LRD meeting and provided with a copy of the documents set out in 32B(2)".

Amendment No. 16 deals with the LRD opinion. This is an important aspect of the legislation. It proposes that the "planning authority shall include in its LRD opinion a summary of the views of the relevant elected members on that proposed development as expressed at any meetings of each Area Committee concerned, or of the municipal district members for each municipal district concerned, as appropriate”. The Minister and I know that city and county councillors are the custodians and guardians of their city and county development plans. They do an exceptional amount of hard work. We all know how the process works and we know the extensive public engagement in the process and the stakeholder engagement with all of that. We also know of the importance of the Aarhus Convention in terms of engagement with community groups, citizens' groups, residents' groups, environmental groups, educational groups, heritage advocates such as An Taisce, which I salute, the Irish Environmental Network and all the bodies that engage and provide support.We have a really impressive set-up in terms of our public engagement and citizens’ engagement in this county development plan.

One of the great things about local government in Ireland is that it is accessible to everyone, and even national politics is accessible to people compared to the European model. People engaged very extensively. I have spoken to a number of local authorities and the public engagement in the county development plans has gone up and is amazing in some areas. People really believe in their areas. They are stakeholders. This is a legitimate expectation. People moving to a new community or who are going to buy a house in a new community check out their city and county development plans. They want to ascertain the degree of certainty within the lifetime of a county development plan in terms of provision for schools, which is becoming a more common practice now in our forward planning, sports, recreation and a whole range of infrastructures, rightly so. We encourage that, I know the Minister encourages that and everyone else here encourages that.

It is about the importance of local government and how we are going to strengthen local government. The Minister stated that he is committed to strengthening local government. He represents a party that has a huge number of seats in local government. The three parties of the coalition Government have a very substantial number of councillors across Fine Gael, the Green Party and Fianna Fáil. They are not tone deaf to the desire for change and to have meaningful engagement with public representatives at local and municipal level.

What these two amendments are seeking is to in some way copper-fasten one of the good things in the SHD process, although there were not too many of them, and that was the public meeting. I want to talk about the importance of the public meeting and of openness and transparency. The public are looking in. They are looking in here today and, no doubt, many of our city and county councillors are looking in also. The public are looking at their council meetings. They observe the conduct of their elected representatives and the manner in which representatives conduct business on their behalf. Councillors have a mandate but that is all that they or any of us have. We have a mandate from the people who elect us. It is about accountability, about transparency and about people being able to look in, with their own eyes, to see and to listen to what people are doing for them in representing their communities.

To come back to the amendment, we are seeking an open system. The Minister talked about streamlining the planning process and bringing it back to the local planning authorities. I fully agree. That is what this amendment will do. What I am suggesting is that the meetings will happen. People sometimes get mixed up between the planning authority, the council and the elected members. None of them can work in isolation, they all have to work together and they all have to respect each other. However, we know that many a plan has slipped out of a planning authority or out of a county hall and gone to the board, and it has not been compliant with the wishes of, or at least not fully compliant with the objectives of, a county development plan.

These plans are put together by the elected members with the professional advice of the planners and, no doubt, people in the Department who have that expertise. Councillors are not planners, but they are highly aware of and highly sensitive to the needs of their communities. They tease out these development plans. Many of their proposals are rejected as they are teased out through the county development plan process. I observed the Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown county development plan and it was great to see a councillor standing up to the management and saying, “No, we do not agree with you and we are calling a vote.” They voted and the planners were not particularly happy, but that is the process. It has not gone and the Office of the Planning Regulator, the Department and the Minister may wish at some point to take a decision, as would be their right given there is provision for that in certain circumstances, but at least there is engagement, which is the important thing.

We must empower our councillors. We talk about a mayor for Limerick. Think of that. Are we suggesting that a mayor and the councillors of Limerick in three years' time would not be able to have a meeting to discuss this type of application? Could we see a situation where, somehow, it is just said that they can put in an application. It was not that many years ago when I had to make a strong case in the Seanad to allow councillors to not have to pay. The Government of the day was in favour of charging them. I have no doubt someone will tell me here today, “Oh, they can scribble a note and they do not have to pay”, or that they can send it into the process. Yes, they can do that and I would not stop that either, but I like this collective input, this collective decision. I like the idea that they can do this, although within very tight time constraints, which I accept, and no one should be frustrating the process. City and county councillors should be facilitated to have this specific meeting and to have their views recorded and attached to the opinion.

That is what these two amendments are about. I hope the Minister can accept them. It is my intention to call a vote on them if he does not. I have given such a commitment. I engaged with Senators across all parties and was asked that I would please push these two simple amendments. They are two simple asks on behalf of the AILG and LAMA. I do not think the Minister has any major difficulty with them.

I know what the CCMA’s view is on this matter but the CCMA is not running local government - the Minister is. We all are, given we are the legislators. The CCMA has its meetings and its decisions and it has its views, which I respect, but we are making the legislation and Deputy Darragh O'Brien is the Minister. I am very keen that the Minister would find a way to support and embed these two amendments in the primary legislation.