Alice-Mary Higgins (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The more we hear, the more concerned I get. We have heard all about the issue of exempted development, whereby the Minister is now going to make these regulations, although we do not really know what will be in them or what categories will be exempted. When I say "exempted", we all want a lot of building to happen but that is skipping the planning process. Again, we might as well throw the Bill out the window, say there is no planning process and just let people go ahead and do whatever. That is what exempted development will mean.

As well as that very broad power, the scope for who can even talk about it is being made incredibly limited. Senator Martin gave us a lecture, asking whether we had learned nothing from previous problems in the planning process. If we want to pick an area where we are creating absolutely perverse incentives, hostages to fortune and a massive danger, it is in the form of these exempted developments. So much power is weighted to the property owner and, therefore, under this new version of section 10, only the property owner will matter. There will be no public in this world. It will be just a world of people with land who want to build things, and the Minister. There is no public. There is no planning process in the first instance - that has been put aside - but there is also no public. As a big concession, the Minister of State included an incredibly narrow version of environmental NGOs if they have been there for a year, but we know he has done that only because it would be illegal otherwise, and it may still be illegal because people have a right to environmental information, although that is separate. It is not the Aarhus Convention alone. We are now talking about the environmental information directive. To say members of the public are not entitled to know if the structure being built next door to them, which may look straight through their window, has any basis or is an exempted development, or to be able to access the declaration on that, is really wild. It is an extraordinary shift, but that is what the Bill currently provides for.

To be clear, when I was talking about groups that had not existed for a long time, it is not just groups. There are other issues, which are not environmental issues, that amount to reasons a local concerned group may wish to know if a development happening next to them has any basis for being there. They may wish to know whether it is happening as an exempted development, and if so, why so. Maybe they would want to be able to challenge it and say they do not think there is a strong case for it to be an exempted development, but they will be cut off from the entire process. The only members of the public with the ability to access this will be those who happen to be in an environmental NGO, with a set of constraints around it, that has been operating for 12 months in this area.

This is going to come back and bite us. I guarantee that Oireachtas Members and councillors throughout the country will give out about decisions relating to exempted developments that not one word could be said about, because they will not be able either to see whether it should be declared or to challenge whether it should be declared. That is a really significant erosion. For example, even if the local residents' association has been around for 50 years, and some local residents' associations in this country have been going for a long time, it cannot look for a declaration, under how this has been set out in the Bill. None of them can say they do not think a declaration fits whatever requirements may or may not have been put into the Minister's regulations when they are done. There will be very angry residents' associations, therefore, throughout the country. Indeed, the same is true of family groups, community groups and so on, and they are not people who are against development. They may be people who just have legitimate and useful points to make, such as whether the development relates to a playground area, whether a right of way applies, whether there is an overshadowing issue or whether, if the design of the development were slightly improved, it would work much better for everyone in the community - the kinds of issues that are picked up in the planning process but which will not happen on these developments. The public need to be alarmed that they are being cut out of this process.

The owners can look at the declarations or appeal. The landowner, the property owner or the person with a vested interest and money to make can engage in the process but the public cannot. Then there is the issue of the courts. There are very few things I have ever seen being taken out. If there is nothing wrong with these declarations, why on earth are they being made inadmissible as evidence in court, whereby they can be used only by the owner as a defence but whereby nobody can say this development in no way fitted the permission that was given? If somebody wishes to challenge a development and say the development is completely different from what a declaration was given for, they will not be able to use the declaration in that regard. That is really weird and secretive and it does not bode well. I urge the Minister of State to strongly think about this between now and Report Stage because it raises red flags all over the place.