Eamon Ryan (Dublin South, Green Party)
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Question 148: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on whether the formal registration of legal options to purchase lands would improve the transparency of the planning and development process. [22583/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Ensuring openness, probity, fairness and efficiency in the operation of the planning system is an ongoing and key challenge. Zoning of land by a planning authority is effected as part of the making of a development plan. Section 10 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 states that a development plan shall include objectives for "the zoning of land for particular purposes (whether residential, commercial, industrial, agricultural, recreational, as open space or otherwise, or as a mixture of those uses), where and to such an extent as the proper planning and sustainable development of the area, in the opinion of the planning authority, required the uses to be indicated". The process of making or varying a development plan is also set out in the 2000 Act and requires, inter alia, extensive public consultation and adoption of the development plan or variation by the elected members.

Persons applying for planning permission must state their application what interest they hold in the land in question or include the consent of the landowner. Planning permissions are given for specific development proposals on specified sites in the context of the proper planning and sustainable development of the area, irrespective of the land's ownership.

At present, land purchase options may be registered voluntarily. However, the All-Party Oireachtas Committee on the Constitution, in its Ninth Progress Report — Private Property, recommended that the existence of options should be included in the categories of transactions to be revealed publicly as a measure to achieve transparency in property markets generally. Consideration is being given to approaches dealing with registration of land options in that context.