Lynn Ruane (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 155:

In page 108, between lines 38 and 39, to insert the following: (d) the provision, or facilitation of the provision, of cultural, social and recreational facilities including, but not limited to, arts centres, community centres, libraries, public spaces, public sports facilities, music and event venues, playgrounds and parks,”.

This Bill represents a grey and banal vision of what life will be in our future. There is little in it that protects and promotes the provision of the type of infrastructure that brings vibrancy and colour to our lives. Amendment No.155 seeks to include a provision of cultural, social and recreational facilities and strategies for sustainable development and regeneration. Amendments Nos.157, 159 and 169 seek to include cultural, recreational and social facilities, alongside the promotion of economic development, employment generation and retail provision. This Bill seems to prioritise economic development and activity over other types of activity.

The Government has a duty to our society regarding more than just economic and commercial development. Our urban centres should not only be about people going shopping and spending money as they should also be places where people can gather socialise, relax and interact in a physical space where culture can ferment. Take the community I am from, namely, Tallaght. It has a huge population of approximately 100,000 although I do not know what the current statistics are population-wise. Obviously, though, it is one of the largest. Tallaght village is located within the area covered by one of the richest county councils in the country in terms of money but Tallaght village is unlivable in terms of intergenerational breakdown. Other towns and villages in much smaller places are much more vibrant spaces in which to spend time.There is also a lack of class analysis. We talk about cultural and social spaces and only focus on economics when, in many of our communities, such as Tallaght, there is a lack of class analysis in understanding what those cultural spaces look like.

Expanding on amendment No. 161, it seeks to include social development alongside economic performance as an aim of planning strategies. Social development is a core responsibility of the State. An economic model and planning system that disregards these responsibilities is an irresponsible one. As we see more and more division in our society, we need our planning legislation to aim to promote and provide spaces where we can break down the barriers between us. This is the function of social and cultural amenities. They should be considered to be of as much importance, if not more, than economic and commercial development. The problems that arise from this myopic focus on economic development are seen currently in our dysfunctional planning systems. Dublin is awash with office developments that have the highest vacancy rates in Europe. CBRE has estimated that the current vacancy rate is at 17.7% and will peak at 20% in the coming years. When we devise a planning system that only aims to maximise economic return, we ignore the social, cultural and emotional needs of citizens in our towns and cities.

Amendment No. 163 seeks to add language to section 146 that obligates planning authorities to consider how best to create sustainable intergenerational urban and rural communities as relevant to their area. We see throughout Ireland how regional inequalities, the housing crisis and over-centralisation are impeding people from continuing to live in the communities they are connected to. So many young people want to build their lives and start families in rural Ireland but cannot because of a lack of employment opportunities and suitable housing. People from Gaeltacht communities are being priced out of their areas because of the proliferation of holiday homes and Airbnbs. Young people are being forced out of the Dublin communities they were raised in and work in because of inflated rents and house prices. It is fundamentally unsustainable and inequitable for people not to be able to afford to live in the places where they work. Those who are driving buses and teaching children in Dublin, and nursing people in Dublin hospitals, should be able to afford to live there. That should not be controversial. If you listen to the proceedings of the health committee on any week, you will hear about the catastrophic impact the staffing shortages have. We need to get house prices under control if we are to have sustainable levels of public service provision in larger cities in the long term. These issues are part of a real, interlocking crisis that is negatively impacting people throughout the country, which should be reflected in the legislation.

There are several sections of the Bill where a reference to Ireland's UNCRPD commitments should be included. Amendment No. 164 relates to one of them. Ireland's ratification of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities was a huge step forward. Our ratification of the convention means that we have an obligation to ensure, in all elements of our society, that people with disabilities are empowered to fully participate. This is a significant task. There are areas where great progress has been made and areas where we continue to fail. It is crucial that all legislation that comes through the Houses is examined through a disability rights lens. Proper planning is an essential part of creating inclusive and accessible communities. We need to build infrastructure and amenities that serve everyone in our society. It is so important that our obligations under the UNCRPD are explicitly referenced in the national planning framework. It is also important, when we look at disability rights and the UNCRPD, that we also add the extra lens of class analysis. We have an ageing population in many of our communities that was once able to access local amenities and community centres, whether it was to access addiction services, family support services or any of those things. Due to the lack of planning and upgrading of any building, we now have an ageing population, which includes people who are already disenfranchised, who are developing disabilities in later life and are unable to access support services within their communities.

I do not intend to use amendment No. 165 to enact another fight about whether the Government is meeting its housing targets or if those targets are adequate given the scale of the housing and homelessness crisis. This amendment just seeks to place the reality of unmet social housing need into legislation. Planning authorities must reckon with the urgent need for more local authority and social housing to alleviate the suffering of people languishing for years on waiting lists, who are living on couches or in hotel rooms, or other forms of precarious living. The planning authorities must also reckon with the issue of voided local authority units lying empty for unacceptably long periods. It is madness that so many council-owned units are in a state of disrepair and active decay, when they could transform lives in a positive way with some investment of time and money. This needs to be a priority. I appreciate that tackling the issue of dereliction more broadly is mentioned in the legislation. I am glad of that. However, a subsection acknowledging the issues I raised would help focus the attention of planning authorities, which could do a lot of good.

Amendment No. 171 is a modest amendment but a necessary one to ensure that planning authorities take a balanced and foresighted approach when they are developing a housing strategy in urban areas. It seeks to insert the word "appropriately" into the subsection, which would mandate planning authorities to explore sites that could be used for much-needed housing. Building more housing is a top priority. However, planners need legislative guidance that stresses the importance of sustainable development and building balanced communities with access to green space and other essential amenities. It must be noted that access to green spaces and the volume of trees planted in areas are often correlated to socioeconomic inequalities. It is important that new houses are built in a way that is harmonious with the area they are in. We need more housing and more dense housing settlements. We also need to access nature and community. This small amendment would help communicate that need for balance. I hope the Minister accepts it.

Amendment No. 172 is another small amendment but one that is important in creating a balanced text in the Bill. It seeks to instruct planning authorities to consider the need for public amenities, as well as housing units, when looking at activating an empty or derelict site. We must build more housing, especially more social and affordable housing. However, we must not repeat the mistakes made in the creation of new Dublin suburbs in the 1970s, when communities were created without the surrounding businesses, public services and amenities required to create sustainable and functional communities. It is important that these lessons about the elements needed for sustainable development and community building are threaded throughout the Bill, if it is to be the new basis of our planning system.

We raised the issue of accessible green spaces in previous amendments, but it is important that this section contains a commitment to accessible green spaces too. That is what amendment No. 173 seeks to do. We all know how important it is that communities have shared spaces, where people can come together to exercise, socialise and be among nature. This is an essential part of building healthy and sustainable communities that are cohesive and welcoming. We must ensure that our green spaces are accessible to people with disabilities. These areas are community amenities and need to be accessible to everyone. We need to embed inclusive and empowering design into the fabric of all planning decisions. That is why a reference to accessible green space is so clearly necessary in this section. We are in the midst of a significant cultural and political reckoning with the extent to which people with disabilities are being let down by society. We need to act with urgency to rectify this, especially given our obligations under the UNCRPD. We need to incorporate disability justice into all the relevant legislation that comes through the Houses, including this Bill.

We raised the issue of Traveller accommodation previously. It is important to us that it is also mentioned in this section of the Bill, which is the aim of amendment No. 174. Despite ring-fenced funding for Traveller accommodation, many local authorities have failed to make plans to utilise those funds, despite having many Traveller residents in dire need of housing. This is an incredibly sad situation. The money is there but the political will and administrative commitment is lacking. That needs to be rectified. People are enduring terrible living conditions that are having terrible impacts on their physical and mental health. Young Travellers in overcrowded accommodation have a hard time finding the space they need to do schoolwork, etc. Inadequate housing and homelessness compounds educational and health disparities. It prevents people from living healthy lives and achieving their full potential. If the Government is issuing national planning statements, then issuing one on this crisis should be the Minister's first priority. I hope he will accept this amendment. Amendment No. 175 is necessary because while there has been some progress in terms of house building, there is a stark underperformance when it comes to building new local authority housing and bringing voids back into circulation. This is particularly egregious given the huge waiting list full of people in desperate need of local authority housing. Local authorities in the 1930s and onwards under Fianna Fáil governments built huge quantities of high-quality homes. They created new suburbs in Dublin and further afield. This transformed Irish society. It is how we finally ended slum living and it gave successive generations a real chance to break out of intergenerational cycles of poverty and exclusion. It was economically and socially transformative. We desperately need that kind of ambition today to tackle the endless waiting lists and the scandal of families living in hotel rooms, which is just another form of institutionalisation. If the poor, backward Ireland of 90 years ago could manage it, I do not understand how the Ireland of 2024, a wealthy country with billions of euro stashed away, cannot capture the same determination to alleviate the suffering that is placing a huge strain on our society. Local authority housing, if properly managed and maintained, provides the best possible security of tenure and is the most equitable way of housing people whose incomes are too low to be able to engage with the private sector. In the long term, it is far more sustainable than the endless subsidisation of private tenancies through HAP, which represents both an upward transfer of wealth from taxpayers generally to the landlord class and a persistent source of inflation within the strained private rental market. The Housing Commission's report identified this issue and I hope the Government will act on its expert opinion. I also hope that, in the spirit of listening to housing experts and the people in desperate need of housing, this amendment will be accepted.

Amendment No. 176 is crucial. The housing crisis is an under-recognised contributor to the epidemic of domestic violence and violence against women more broadly. We all should understand that, for people suffering from abuse, extracting themselves from that situation can be a fraught and complicated psychological and social process. It can sometimes take multiple attempts to break contact for good. These complex issues are further amplified and entrenched by factors such as poverty, addiction and homelessness. It is much harder to leave an abusive and dangerous situation if you have nowhere else to go. That is why women's refuges are so important. However, refuges are only a temporary solution. Planning authorities need to ensure the provision of longer-term accommodation for survivors of domestic violence. No one should face homelessness if they flee violence. We know housing support and security is an essential part of an effective and holistic strategy to end domestic violence and violence against women. If one is facing homelessness and a lack of safety and security, it replaces physical violence with a structural violence and a continued situation whereby somebody is safe in the physical sense from a person who was domestically abusing them, but he or she enters a space of systematic and structural violence where they cannot seek safety in terms of having four walls around them.

Amendment No. 177 is essential. We are living through an era of increasing global instability, with Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine, Israel's genocidal assault on Gaza and the persistent threats of famine in places such as the Horn of Africa. Climate breakdown will contribute to ever larger numbers of refugees all over the world. This is the reality that states must deal with. If refugees are not treated with the dignity they deserve as human beings, it will be corrosive to the democratic fabric of our society. Look at how racism has rendered the political culture of the United States and the United Kingdom incoherent and increasingly self-destructive. Part of any humane and rights-based asylum system is finding accommodation for people as they wait for their claims to be processed. We are failing miserably in that regard. Despite a High Court order demonstrating that making single men, including children, seeking asylum homeless as a matter of course is illegal, the Government is persisting in this heartless policy. Now, it is engaged in a cruel and pointless game of whack-a-mole with asylum-seeker camps as they pop up throughout the city. These homeless asylum seekers have nowhere else to go, yet their belongings are routinely confiscated and destroyed by An Garda. The legal basis for this is unclear. These homeless asylum seekers, which we can see in the wider homeless setting, are the global homeless. They then come to Ireland and become the Irish homeless, being harassed and assaulted by racist activists who are tormenting men for the entertainment of their social media followers. It is obscene. We have a duty to house men and protect them from violence. I cannot understand why we are refusing to do so. This cannot continue. Not only is it illegal, allowing it to continue would fundamentally be destructive to the moral and social fibre of Irish society. If we are a modern liberal democracy, we cannot tolerate human rights abuses such as these. This is not just a current temporary crisis; it will be an issue to which we need a long-term solution that requires sustainable planning and development. That is why it is so important that this amendment is accepted. It is something planners need to work on.

Amendment No. 181 seeks to include young adults in the provision relating to the preservation of cultural and social amenities and facilities in a strategy for a sustainable place and community. While it is welcome that children, the elderly and people with disabilities are mentioned in the context of the preparation of these strategies, the needs of young adults are not accounted for at all. We are facing a crisis in terms of the amount of social and cultural facilities for young people in the country and the lack thereof. There is a loneliness epidemic in Ireland. Young people are socialising less often and spending more time isolated online. There is no housing for young people to begin to gain any autonomy and build their own lives outside of their family home, with 68% of people between the ages of 25 and 29 still living with their parents. Compounding of all this, there is also a critical absence of social and cultural facilities for young people to be able to build connections with their peers. Where do we expect young people to set the foundations of their lives? Where do we expect them to meet their friends and partners, to begin to plan and have a family, and to begin to build connections for their lives and, to frame it entirely in economic terms, their careers? Emigration levels are rising. Young people do not see a future in Ireland. A large number of social amenities that were available to older generations are no longer available to younger generations. Those figures continue to fall. As we have already highlighted with previous amendments, social and cultural facilities are facing an existential crisis across the country. We need to get young people's input into what their communities look like from a cultural perspective. There are many local plans, including for the regeneration of parks. In some communities, the use of scramblers and the relationship with horses are seen as a negative thing. When culturally planning at a local level, some plans have suggested skate parks in a community where there is nobody on skateboards but there are many people who care for animals, such as horses. There are plenty of spaces where we could engage with young people to ensure that our plans for what local amenities and communities should look like reflect their interests and will allow them to develop skills based on those interests.

Amendments Nos. 187 and 188 represent small changes to make the obligations of planning authorities regarding public rights of way to sites of natural beauty set out in section 51 more ambitious. Instead of the existing language about merely preserving already established public rights of way to these sites, we should be creating an obligation to try to open new rights of way to sites that are currently difficult to access. We know that people's right to wander in nature and access sites of natural beauty in Ireland is underdeveloped and we should have ambitious language in this legislation that seeks to empower people to spend more time in nature. I hope this amendment can be accepted.