When dealing with this Bill last week, I suggested that while there may be some case made for new planning legislation which would enable and encourage local authorities to adopt a more liberal attitude to their interpretations of their planning intentions, I pointed out that this Bill is not the correct way to go about it. I should like to make just one reference to the exchange I had with Deputy L'Estrange. He referred me to the Evening Press of 10th November, 1965, and subsequently, as it appears in the Official Report, to the Irish Press of that date. I went to the Librarian and asked him to get me the copies of the Irish Press and the Evening Press for that date. He told me that the evening papers, both the Evening Herald and the Evening Press, are not retained for longer than a year. I read very carefully through the Irish Press of that date and could not find anything in it which I could relate to Deputy L'Estrange's reference. I was out of town over the weekend and had another engagement on Monday so that it was not until today that I found this out and, therefore, I had no opportunity of going to the National Library to look up the reference. Until I see what Deputy L'Estrange is referring to, I must continue to assume that he was using the privileges which we are all granted in this House, for very good reasons, to try to make cheap electioneering propaganda on the eve of the election.
Having said that, I want to refer to one of the Minister's decisions which has led to contention, that is, in relation to the Mount Pleasant Lawn Tennis Club. As I pointed out to the House before, I am very familiar with this club, having been a member of it, and if I did not actually meet my wife at a dance in that club, I certainly met her at a nearby one and we danced in that club long before we were married. I know that club for the past 25 years and, therefore, I am familiar with some of the difficulties it has experienced. Today, on my way to Leinster House, I deliberately drove along Ranelagh Road and around Mount Pleasant Square and had a look at the club premises just to confirm my opinion, which is that any development here—I do not care what it is —will be an improvement to the amenities of the area.
Perhaps the best development would be for the local authority or the Board of Works to take responsibility for laying this ground out as a public park, or to landscape it, to do up the fences, or even for the ESB to paint their sub-station which is in the grounds. However, I do not think that this is a responsibility which either Dublin Corporation or the Board of Works would be very anxious to assume. Furthermore, I do not think it would be right to deprive the tennis club of the amount of land they intend retaining and which has not been used for the purpose of playing tennis—it is a sort of grass entrance to the club— without making an offer of a suitable open space for them on which to continue as a club, as I believe has been done in other cases.
It seems unlikely, therefore, that either the elected councillors or the Board of Works would be prepared to take on themselves the financial responsibility of doing up the frontage of this property and all around it. The only way in which the area can be improved is by commercial development. Deputy L'Estrange bandied about figures and said that this property was now worth £60,000. I assume that Deputy L'Estrange has been on a local authority but certainly he has not been on a local authority for Dublin city or county or otherwise he would know that the first thing a petrol company will look for when planning to erect a petrol station is that the station will be on the left-hand side of the road as the traffic leaves town. At Mount Pleasant it is on the right-hand side.
The second thing they want to ensure is that the station will not be on a road on which a clearway will operate when catering for the main volume of traffic, which would make it difficult for people not only to cross from the clearway to the station but to get back into a lane again. This could be an argument against giving approval for a filling station but it is also an argument to show that the figures mentioned by Deputy L'Estrange are completely out of the question. No petrol man who is half sane would consider paying anything like £50,000 or £60,000 for that site. I took the opportunity of asking one or two people in the business about this and they shared that view.
Perhaps if some other suggestions had been made to the Minister, they might have been favourably considered. I cannot see how this proposed development will do anything but improve the site, a site which has been an eyesore in my constituency for as long as I can remember, even when I was dancing there as a boy. It is all right to get up here and quote hypothetical figures. It is the same as the man who won the Sweep and because, in some indirect way, somebody carried a poster at the airport supporting one of our Ministers, there was a lot of talk about corruption and jobbery. This will not hold up in the light of cold examination. It is a reasonable assumption that probably hundreds of planning appeals go into the Department of Local Government every week. If I take the three or four of which I may hear and multiply that by 144, even allowing 20 per cent off to cover those Deputies who do nothing, then it is reasonable to assume some hundreds of applications every week. Last week I estimated that one in ten such appeals is approved and I suggested that was not enough. I do not believe local authorities are liberal enough in dealing with planning matters and I do not believe the Department is sufficiently liberal either.
Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Dublin Corporation had power to make a compulsory purchase order in relation to the Grand Canal and suppose that were appealed by the various interested parties to the committee envisaged in this Bill, I take it those who would sit on this committee would be people who would have at least some special knowledge of the problem facing Dublin Corporation in that situation; if they looked at the situation only from the point of view of Dublin Corporation they would uphold the compulsory purchase order; but, when the final responsibility rests with the political head of the Department, then he would have to consider the other matters that would arise in that kind of situation, matters such as the development of the midland waterways.
I have certain points of view on that. They are not relevant at the moment, but what I am trying to get across is that certain buildings may be proposed in an area which no Minister may have taken into consideration. For example, take the development of port facilities in Dublin. In many planning applications and in many planning appeals there will be far more to be considered than the mere local interest and the local amenity. The development of Dublin port is causing some concern to people in the Sandymount area, but it is recognised by everybody that development is essential if Dublin is to continue to prosper. I can visualise a situation in which a planning application will be refused and an appeal will be taken against that refusal from the point of view of a purely local interest. I can see situations in which more might be involved than just the Minister for Local Government. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Transport and Power, the Minister for Labour, the Minister for Agriculture and even the Minister for Finance might all be involved to some degree or other. On occasion the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Defence might be involved. Because this particular planning matter is one that impinges on very wide interests I firmly believe the proper person to be the final arbiter is the political head of the Department of Local Government in consultation with his experts and with his colleagues in instances in which his colleagues are concerned.
As I suggested last week, our whole approach to planning must be broadened. The Minister's predecessor and, I think, the Minister himself have talked about greater planning zones. That type of development should be proceeded with as quickly as possible and the necessity of having to appeal should be eliminated as far as possible. I know that when Dublin Corporation bought certain properties in Wood Quay there was a public furore about it. Every conceivable argument was used to try to prove that this entire property should be maintained in its existing Georgian style. It was argued that a certain long-established business would be put out of business. If this Bill were to become law Dublin Corporation would not be able to knock these buildings down in order to construct proper municipal offices.
Every argument was used; the cost of the new building was trotted out. The pattern was identical with that with which we have become so familiar through the years, a pattern very noticeable when Fianna Fáil are in office and not so noticeable when Fianna Fáil are in opposition. The pressure groups allied to the present Opposition are far better organised obviously in this type of thing than we are. Of course, we have far less experience of opposition. Despite the decision that was taken quite some years back very little progress has been made.
Anybody who has had experience as a member of Dublin Corporation must agree that the quickest and best way in which to get efficient corporation administration is by having centralised offices. I trust it is not because of the operations of some pressure group or some appeal against the corporation's decision that the project is being held up. In a situation like that this Bill envisages getting a High Court judge to adjudicate against the local authority of the area in which he has jurisdiction. This kind of pressure and opposition can be very, very dangerous. It is not a good thing to try to shake confidence in the Government of the day. Any government should be given support during its tenure of office. It can account for its stewardship later.
I casually picked up since last week a publication called Fogra. This is published by the combined universities' branches of Fianna Fáil. It is pointed out that the views expressed are those of contributors and should not be taken as representing the views of the Fianna Fáil Party. There is in this publication an extract from the Irish Independent. This is volume 1, No. 3:
The Parties whip themselves into hysteria at the wrongheadedness and shortcomings of their rivals and, having completely undermined confidence in themselves that the people are becoming apathetic about the whole system and, worse still that foreigners and bankers among them are losing confidence.
That seems to me to be appropriate to this Bill because the kind of arguments we have heard in its favour can do nothing except shake confidence in the system of democracy in operation; in other words, the operation of a free society as distinct from a totalitarian one. When I see the same people appearing on different pressure groups with the same type of tactics, I begin to wonder if all the moneys these people have are provided by local voluntary subscription.
The Bill as it is envisaged says:
The Minister shall after consultation with the Board make regulations in relation to the following matters:
(a) the conduct of business by the Board,...
The legal gentlemen can explain this to me. Does this mean the Minister shall consult the Board and say: "You are to conduct yourselves in this way because the Government want this appeal approved or disapproved?"