Michael McDowell (Independent)

I share Senator Keogan's reservations about the Office of the Planning Regulator. I understand what the Minister has said on it emerging from one of the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal but, with the greatest of respect, the fact the tribunal had to deal with allegations of corruption in respect of zoning and rezoning by local authority members never required something as draconian as the Office of the Planning Regulator to be established. It certainly did not require the Department giving to the Office of the Planning Regulator a power effectively to undo decisions of local authorities by fiat, subject only to an ultimate veto by a Minister, which has to be laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas. It gave massive power to the Planning Regulator to undo decisions that local authority members made in good faith.

I do not accept the proposition that local authority members are ignorant or foolish when it comes to the zoning requirements in their area. I heard that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council was told by the Planning Regulator to dezone land in its area. It is a city area, virtually. For the Planning Regulator to say it had zoned land for housing to an excessive degree was an extraordinary proposition. The requirement it should dezone that land was made by the Planning Regulator which, we are told, is independent in the execution of its functions and is subject only to the right of a Minister to supervene again and lay before the Houses of the Oireachtas a direction to ignore the Planning Regulator. Otherwise, such a direction from the Planning Regulator takes effect. This is the direct opposite of local democracy.

The members of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council were entitled to decide, and were in a far better position to decide, on what likely demand for housing there was in their area and to make their zoning decisions accordingly. It was never suggested that the rezonings directed to be rescinded by the Office of the Planning Regulator more recently were in any way tainted by corruption or suspicion as to the bona fides of the councillors who made their decisions. It was never suggested this was the case. In fairness, this has to be said. They are people who make decisions in good faith based on their calculation of what demand for housing in Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown will be.

I have seen, from work I have done elsewhere, the Office of the Planning Regulator intervenes in the sequence of rezoning land outside the centres of towns of medium size. This has happened on a number of occasions. The Planning Regulator has said that in theory, the land could be rezoned but there is land closer to the centre of the town in question that should be developed first. This is all very well, except the persons who own the land nearer the town centre have no intention, for one reason or another, of carrying out any development on it. They cannot be forced to do so unless the local authority decides to CPO the land. In these circumstances we go through the entire rigmarole of having An Coimisiún Pleanála confirming a CPO regime if, as a housing authority, the local authority decides to intervene and purchase land compulsorily. This requires, in the way things actually operate, that the Department backs it up financially when it comes to a CPO for this purpose.

I agree with Senator Keogan. The OPR was a heavy-handed overreaction. It is an aggregation of power to the centre of the Department, operating through a so-called independent agency to examine in minute detail, by reference to national planning directives, frameworks and the like, and micromanage what local authority members did and do in respect of the development of their areas.I have seen other cases where, for instance, the Office of the Planning Regulator decides there have to be duplex-type developments in developments outside towns. The local authority, having consulted the developers in their area, says there is no demand in rural Ireland and in rural Irish towns for those duplex arrangements. The local authority, though, is overruled and told it must have duplex-type housing densities on the land it is now proposing to zone or grant planning permission in respect of. In my view, all of that is grossly excessive.

Regarding Senator Keogan's proposals in her amendments, I support them. I think it is time we said goodbye to the Office of the Planning Regulator. There are different ways to handle suspected corruption. It should be done by a Minister and the consent of these Houses. It should not be done by a so-called independent and largely autonomous officer who imposes his or her will on the democratic choices made by local authority members against the possibility that they would behave improperly or in bad faith or corruptly in relation to their decisions on zoning and in the content of their own development plan.

I will add one thing, and that is this list of amendments to this Bill contains 21 amendments that are Government amendments. This is for a Bill that has just been guillotined through the Dáil and flung in here for our consideration under similar time pressure. In the main, these are amendments that could have been envisaged as necessary at the time when the Planning and Development Act 2024 was guillotined through this House and rushed through Dáil Éireann prior to the last general election. This is not a way to conduct parliamentary business. We do not have the explanatory memorandums for this House for these 21 amendments. The Minister is in a position to tell us what each amendment is about but we do not have a detailed account ahead of the debate as to precisely what is planned.

Regarding housing standards, and we will probably come to it later concerning section 44B, which it is proposed to insert in Part III of the Planning and Development Act 2000, a Bill which is proposed to be repealed in its entirety by the 2024 Act. These are controversial proposals and should be the subject of detailed consideration in both Houses and they are not going to get it, like so much of the 2024 Act. For everybody's benefit, I had a researcher just look at the 2024 Act and how many individual amendments were made and never considered by either House. My researcher says that in total it came to more than 1,500 amendments. It is some achievement that a code could be enacted with that volume of unconsidered amendments made by both Houses but deemed by virtue of guillotine resolutions to have been considered and approved by both Houses. It is the exact opposite of democracy. I have to just put this on the record.