Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

First, I wish to pay tribute to Larry Butler. He was a man I knew well. I served with him on Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. He had served, prior to that, on Dublin County Council when it arched out into Dún Laoghaire before the merger. I knew him to be a great character; that he certainly was. He was a great colleague and mentor. He was a man who believed in keeping his feet on the ground and keeping in close contact with his constituents. He went on to be elected to the Seanad and he was a man I worked closely with and collaborated with on the General Council of County Councillors, which was the organisation that preceded the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG.

The Cathaoirleach put it right when he said Larry's heart was in Carlow. He was unique in that he is buried in Tinnahinch, which is in County Carlow.Anyone who knows the beautiful town of Graiguenamanagh will know there is a bridge there called the Tinnahinch-Graiguenamanagh bridge. If someone is on one side of the bridge, he or she is in Tinnahinch in County Carlow while the other half of the bridge is in Graiguenamanagh in County Kilkenny, but there he was. He was the son of a lock keeper and always went back there. He went to London and was involved in the construction and building sector. He was a self-made man and an entrepreneur. He was everything in terms of being close to sport and his community and led from the front.

I pay tribute to him and offer my sympathies to Kathleen, his beloved wife of many years, and his children. They were exceptionally close and exceptionally proud of one another. Certainly, he achieved a lot in his life. His greatest achievement was when he came into the Seanad. He truly loved this place and the sense of awe he got from it. We remember him at this time. He was a great character and a close friend and confidant of mine.

When I looked at this morning's edition of the Irish Independent, I saw a caption to the effect that the coalition would override planners in the row over the Rotunda Hospital. I support the Rotunda and its development plans. In the article on the front page of the Irish Independent, it quotes the Taoiseach in the Dáil as saying that the denial of permission was "the wrong decision". I think the Taoiseach is wrong, not because of the issue but because we had a Planning and Development Bill that was guillotined in both the Dáil and the Seanad and under which I raised the issue of An Coimisiún Pleanála and its power to override its own inspectors. We know from this article, but we also know from the facts, having read the file today online, that Dublin City Council recommended planning permission. It then went to An Coimisiún Pleanála, which considered it de novo. Ultimately, an inspector was appointed and made a decision that permission be granted, but An Coimisiún Pleanála overrode its own inspector because we in these Houses empowered it to do so. Where does the problem start? The problem starts with the fact that some of us in these Houses did not listen and respond to the debate at the time and allowed this to happen. The Government cannot retrospectively change planning. There is a suggestion today that An Coimisiún Pleanála will go through a critical infrastructure process, which it may well do, but it will have to start all over again. That is the planning process the Houses legislated for. I usually take issue with An Coimisiún Pleanála, but in this case, it did nothing wrong. It operated within the law and within the constraints of the Planning and Development Act as legislated for and provided for in these Houses. Yes, we highlighted it but the Government did not listen to the Opposition in the Dáil and the Seanad and now we have a crisis, but it is a crisis of the Government's own making, nobody else's.

I wish the Rotunda Hospital every success in a plan but if we have plans and statutes on planning and development, we need to think hard before we agree them because this is a result of legislation agreed by this Government in these Houses.