Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

It would not be correct or fair of me to try to anticipate what the Minister is going to say. I do not propose to do that. Instead, I will read into the record a letter dated September 2021 to the Minister of State with responsibility for planning and local government, Deputy Burke. It states:

Dear Minister,

I have been asked by the AILG to respond to your Department's recent publication of the General Scheme of the Planning and Development (Amendment)(LSRD) Bill 2021.

The Association broadly welcomes this measure in that it brings an end to the Strategic Housing Development process, dating from the Planning & Development (Housing) & Residential Tenancies Act 2016, which by-passed local authorities in the case of large scale housing planning applications. The 2021 Bill - properly - returns this function to the local authorities.

It is noted that the briefing material accompanying the new Bill refers to the fact that the Bill incorporates some of the features of the SHD process such as the mandatory pre-application consultations and the accelerated decision times.

A feature of the 2016 procedure that was commendable was the explicit provision for consultation of elected members in open council in relation to large scale residential development and that their views would be recorded and formally communicated to An Bord Pleanala.

Such consultation of elected members is not included in the current Bill as published.

The Association strongly believes that there is merit in continuing with such a structured consultation of the elected members given the large scale of the development involved, it's likely benefits and impacts for an area, and the desirability of the Councillors having an input for their local knowledge into the consideration of the application....

The letter is not much longer. It continues:

Therefore, it is the Association's view that the Bill needs to include explicit provision prohibiting the inclusion in the plan of features that are unacceptable to the Development/Local Area Plan of the authority in question.

In summary, the Association requests that the Bill be amended to include: 1.A mandatory consultation channel for the elected council similar to that in the outgoing Act of 2016 Section 8 (4) & (5).

2.A prohibition on characteristics conflicting with the planning authority development plan being included by applicants at the primary application stage.

That is what they have asked for. They appeared before the committee and they actively engaged. We questioned them. It was a very thorough engagement. People valued their contribution. They affirmed in positive questioning. I will not go far as to say they affirmed an absolute commitment, but they did. I cannot understand why the Minister would not consider the inclusion of this provision. He might confirm to the Seanad what engagement he has had with the CCMA, its views and its reasons for opposing this legislation. It is on record as opposing it. It has been in touch with the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage about it. There is active engagement with the CCMA. I would be somewhat surprised if the Minister was not able to share that information with us. I will come back to that when the Minister has responded.

We should send out a clear signal about this. There is nothing to stop the Minister doing this if he believes in strengthening the power of city and county councillors in their city and county halls in an open and transparent manner. One of the things that the tribunals constantly stated was that there was a suggestion all along that elected members were engaging with planners and developers off-side. There was a lot of criticism of that, and rightly so.

The amendment seeks "a meeting" where the city and county councillors who wish to engage - there is nothing compulsory about this suggestion - with the planners can do so. They are the professional planners but clearly they have to take advice. It is about mutual respect for the professional planners and the elected members who are on the ground, who represent their communities and who, in many cases, know best the lie of the land in an area. I ask the Minister to consider these amendments, which were proposed by city and county councillors. I am a conduit here tonight, but I believe in what they are doing. I do not stand here and advocate and pursue something that I do not believe in. This is the right decision. We should stand by them and show our solidarity with them. All of the statements about better local government, better democracy and bringing it local mean nothing if we cannot respond in a meaningful way to the two simple requests that these associations, with which the Minister is very familiar, have asked for.