Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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Question 50: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the number of unauthorised development complaints made to local authorities in 2010; his views on the way the system is functioning in some or all local authorities; the changes that he proposes; and if he will give details of these changes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [23971/11]

Willie Penrose (Longford-Westmeath, Labour)
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My Department gathers aggregate data on enforcement activity from planning authorities, including data on the number of warning letters issued under Section 152 of the Planning Act and the number of enforcement notices issued under sections 154 and 155 of the Planning Act together with the number of prosecutions initiated on foot of these enforcement notices. The most recently available data are published in the 2009 Annual Planning Statistics, available on my Department's website at www.environ.ie. It is the responsibility of planning authorities to provide for proper enforcement of planning control and to take all appropriate steps to ensure that development takes place in compliance with national and EU law.

Planning authorities have substantial enforcement powers under the Planning and Development Act 2000. A planning authority may issue an enforcement notice, non-compliance with which is an offence, in connection with unauthorised development (which includes failure to comply with planning conditions), requiring such steps as the authority considers necessary to be taken within a specified period. If an enforcement notice is not complied with, the planning authority may itself take the specified steps and recover the expense incurred in doing so. A planning authority may also seek a court order requiring any particular action to be done or not to be done.

The Planning Acts also place clear statutory obligations on planning authorities in relation to unauthorised development. A planning authority must issue a warning letter in relation to written complaints regarding unauthorised development, or other unauthorised development it becomes aware of (except in the case of trivial or minor development). The planning authority must then carry out an investigation and where it establishes, following such an investigation, that unauthorised development has been or is being carried out and the person who has carried out or is carrying out the development has not proceeded to remedy the position, the planning authority must issue an enforcement notice or make an application for a court order unless there are compelling reasons for not doing so.

I am maintaining ongoing oversight of planning enforcement and will review performance as necessary to ensure a robust statutory and policy framework for proper planning and sustainable development.