Michael McDowell (Independent)

Normally, I would not comment on a section of this kind but I want to draw the attention of the House to what we are doing. We are proposing to amend the Planning and Development Act 2024. I have a copy of it here. The Act will be twice as long when it is translated into Irish. We are waiting for that process to take place. I want to put on the record of the House that the Bill was guillotined with the great majority of amendments not even reached or considered. The Bill came from the Dáil to this House in such an altered state that a special version of it had to be prepared to enable Senators to understand what had actually emerged from the Dáil and to show how it was different from the Bill that started off in the Dáil. When the Bill came to this House, we were told it was a matter of absolute urgency that it would be enacted before the last general election. The Bill was guillotined in this House with hundreds of amendments, including Government amendments, never being reached or discussed. The Bill then went back to the Dáil and a guillotined motion said that all Government amendments were approved, even those that were never considered or discussed. The Bill got a fairly light consideration in the Dáil of less than a day because, again, it was urgent that it would be passed before the general election was called. This document, which is now the cornerstone of all planning and development law in Ireland was enacted without being properly scrutinised. I will say what I have to say on some provisions of the law that we are changing now. Scarcely a year later, here we are amending this Act, which was so urgent that it had to be guillotined through the House at the time without proper debate.

I want to make a general observation. I believe the passage of this Act and the enshrinement in Irish law of a whole series of things, including the position of An Bord Pleanála, retitled An Coimisiún Pleanála, and processes involving national development objectives set out as criteria by which local authorities are bound, ministerial directives and the infamous Office of the Planning Regulator - which in its time has operated to dezone land zoned for building domestic houses at a time of housing shortage - all of that is now being made a permanent part of our law. Some of the amendments we are making today are sensible but the Act by itself, as amended, is fundamentally an obstruction to development in this country not an enabler.It sets out to put in place a system of planning law in Ireland, which will obstruct planning and development for many years even though it purports to limit the capacity of individuals and unincorporated associations to avail of judicial review. It will in fact enshrine the system of planning law, which at the moment has reached crisis point where we do not have the infrastructure in terms of water or electricity to carry out relevant development to deal with the housing crisis. We are struggling to provide water from the Shannon to Dublin or to establish the national electricity grid in a sufficient way to deal with every kind of demand, whether domestic or data centre, that has been put in place.

We are dealing with what I believe is a complete error. That is the supposition by one Department of State that An Bord Pleanála is competent to deal with every issue, from offshore wind farms to be built in the Atlantic, to motorways, to every form of compulsory purchase anywhere in the country, and even to the trivial such as if you are entitled to an overhead electrical gantry outside your house in Ranelagh to feed your car at night. All of these things are now coming within the purview of An Coimisiún Pleanála, which, with the greatest of respect - and I put this on the record - will turn out as one of the greatest mistakes this country has made. If we are serious about major infrastructural developments, we should do it in a different way. We should use what continental countries are entitled to do. That is state-sponsored legislative infrastructural developments, which are not the subject of the normal planning process, which are not the material sent to An Coimisiún Pleanála and which are not in any way accountable to judicial review of the inordinate kind we have at the moment. I put those views on the record.

This Bill will be twice as large as it is now when the Irish translation comes about, and by the way it is not available as signed by the President until that is done. This is an unofficial copy. This Act and the amendments we are already making to an Act that was guillotined through these Houses is not the solution for Ireland's solutions planning-wise. It is an enshrinement of everything that is wrong in Irish planning law. It is an enshrinement, in my view, in Irish law of something that will ensure that the coming ten and 20 years will be as unproductive as the previous ten or 20 years in respect of those badly-needed projects. Take a look at the Shannon to Dublin water supply. It was planned at least 30 years ago by Dublin Corporation as it then was. The head of Uisce Éireann told a conference recently that if he got the green light today to go ahead with it, 30 years later, even though it is agreed it should be done, it will be another ten years before it would be completed because of the delays associated with Irish planning law. We cannot go on living like this. We are living in cloud-cuckoo-land if we think the Planning and Development Act 2024 or the amendments we are making to it today will substantially improve what is radically wrong with the capacity of the Irish State to deliver to the people what they are entitled to, that is, decent infrastructure, decent development and a decent response to the housing crisis.