On the last occasion I was querying the Minister as to whether or not he intended to introduce in good time the comprehensive measure which he spoke of in his contribution earlier in this debate. It struck me that he had gone to some considerable lengths to assure the Progressive Democrats that he had the heads of a Bill already drafted, that he intended to do business on this Bill and that he would view the matter with some urgency. What was equally apparent to me was that when The Labour Party moved a Bill in relation to local government and in particular in relation to the preservation of woodlands, they were told that the Government intended to bring in a comprehensive measure in relation to local government planning and development and they were asked to withdraw their Bill because the Government had this intention to bring in a reforming statute. That was a year ago and nothing has been done about it.
We are now told that the heads of a Bill are available. That, as I understand it, means that each section of the Bill has been thought out and it is at least known in short form what the new Bill is to contain. We asked that, if that were the case, we would be shown the heads of the Bill. To use the graphic metaphor of Deputy Keating, he said he would not believe, until he put his fingers into the wounds, that these heads of Bills existed. We still have not been given any sight of the heads of the Bill that the Government have in contemplation and this strikes me as odd in the circumstances.
Deputy Birmingham told the House that there is a precedent for the Government to show the Opposition the heads of a Bill in order to convince them that they are really serious and that they have put their minds to work on the issues involved in the Bill. We are now told that we may not see the heads of the Bill. No effort has been made to show us what the Government have in mind or even the rough outline of the legislation they have in contemplation. This leads me to suspect that there is still a great deal of uncertainty in the minds of the Government as to precisely what they want to achieve. If there is this degree of uncertainty, one thing is absolutely certain — we are not going to see this Bill put in place before 1991 at the earliest. I will lay a bet with the junior Minister who is here that he will not have enacted a local government, planning and development, amending statute within two years of this date.
I do not believe it will have gone through all the stages in the Dáil and Seanad and have passed under the President's seal within two years of today. All the signs are that the Minister has not yet made up his mind as to precisely how he wants to deal with the compensation issue. This is a complex issue. We in the Progressive Democrats never claimed that our formulation of how to deal with the matter and how to curtail section 56 of the 1963 Act was the only one that could be chosen. We say it is a workable way of achieving the results which we set out to achieves. We make no apologies for having put in place what are, by any standards, fairly harsh and severe restrictions on the right to compensation.
One of the effects of not accepting this Bill will be that the Government will bring in their own Bill. Because of the rules of practice in this House there will not be a select committee to consider the Government's Bill. The House will probably sit for weeks on end, because this is a complex and controversial measure, with three or four Deputies in this House debating the third Stage of that Bill when it comes about, a year from now or whatever. One of the problems with that is that the rest of the House will be delayed while that is going on. Private Members' Bill have the great advantage that they offer the House an opportunity to get on with something else and the Committee Stage of the Private Members' Bill is dealt with by a select committee while not delaying the rest of this House from doing other more urgent business. The Fine Gael Bill in relation to marriage breakdown which is now before a committee — even taking into account that there is an element of filibustering on behalf of the Minister's colleagues — is not delaying what is going on in this House. What is going on in Setanta House does not stop the Dáil from functioning.
One of the problems about Private Members' legislation is that if the Government always say: "Please withdraw your Bill on Second Stage; we will bring in our own," first, it requires a Second Stage debate to take place all over again covering roughly the same territory. This happened with the Intoxicating Liquor Bill which Fine Gael brought in recently. Secondly, it involves discussion by a full committee of this House which means further delays in legislation. I am appealing to the Minister of State, if he really does have proposals to amend the law in relation to planning, to let the Progressive Democrats' Bill go to its Third Stage and put down his proposals by way of amendment.
I heard what was said on the last occasion. It was to the effect that it is not normally the practice for the Government to come up with proposals by way of an amendment to a Private Members' Bill but I cannot see why it should not be the practice. It would save a lot of time and bother and would make for a more mature process of debate in this House if the Government addressed Private Members' Bills tendered by the Opposition in a serious frame of mind and put down their own proposals by way of amendment instead of insisting on bringing in their own legislation, lock, stock and barrel, de novo, as if nothing had happened before.
I want to comment on what Deputy Quinn said on the last occasion. He said that one of the deficiencies he saw in our Bill was the absence of any new scheme for quantifying compensation. He was talking in terms of changing the law so that, instead of market value, there would be what he called existing use value as the basis of compensation. He had a graphic illustration of a coalyard on the quays for which the owners were compensated as though it were a site for building on. There is a mistake in the Labour Party's thinking on that issue. Existing use value has nothing to do with the real value of any asset. Many assets are under-used at any given time for a variety of reasons, one of which is that people are preparing to use them for another, more productive use. To take them from people at less than their market value is to expropriate the owners to some extent. There is no point in beating about the bush and saying that because you are not using your assets to their maximum possible extent at any given time they do not have a potential value for other use. There is no point in pretending that market value is not a proper yardstick for compensation.
I am interested to note that the Labour Party do not seem to take on board what effect our proposals to change the planning laws would have on the measure of compensation. One of the reasons for which you could be refused compensation would be, for instance, that the development you had in mind would contravene the development plan for the area. That would give to local authorities the power in many respects to control the level of compensation because, if the development plan specified that land should be used for housing only, the present open market value system of compensation would be dramatically reduced.
I also noted the Minister's speech where he suggested that our proposal to alter the meaning of the term "use" as it is employed in section 56 would have a more far-reaching effect than perhaps we thought it might have when we drafted that measure. I can assure him it would not. Our proposal was to confine compensation to cases where there was no change of use. Change of use is a term used in the 1953 statute which means a number of things. It does not mean just any change but a change of use for which planning permission would be required. It means a substantial change of use, not simply any alteration or just any change.
I want to turn now to the reasoning used by the Minister in relation to our proposal to extend section 27 jurisdiction to the Circuit Court. The Minister said the present arrangements in the High Court worked well and seemed to suggest that we should be reticent about extending section 27 to the Circuit Court. I know from my practice as a barrister of cases where the fact that High Court proceedings were in issue has deterred many people, who had good section 27 applications, from going to court because residents' associations, small people, confronted with big speculators feel afraid of the potential costs if, for some unforeseen reason, the High Court should decide not to give an injunction, which is a discretionary relief, to them.
I believe the extension of the section 27 power to the Circuit Court would have a very beneficial effect in making it into an available remedy. It would allow small people to use section 27 with a realistic risk as to costs, and not a risk of costs which would totally discourage any but the richest or most confident ligitants from going to court. Above all, it would have a geographical effect, because it would mean Kerry County Council could apply to a Kerry circuit judge for an order to stop a breach of the planning law in Kerry, and that all the people involved would be able to go to a local court and have the matter decided by a local judge in circumstances where costs would be minimised. It seems to me that the Minister's reasoning was conservative, "knee-jerk" and unconvincing on that issue. Justice demands that the Circuit Court should be given jurisdiction.
I will conclude by mentioning a few important aspects of the Bill. The provisions of the Bill relating to sewerage and the 1978 Public Health (Ireland) Act in relation to the statutory duty of sanitary authorities to provide sewerage services in their area, have more far-reaching effects than seem to be understood by some Deputies. We are not simply taking about charging people to connect drains into sewers. We are trying to ensure that compensation is not paid on the basis of a mythical and wholly unrealistic presumption and statutory duty that the sanitary authority are to provide a sewer for any development that can be built.
We are reserving the position. We are providing that the duty to provide sewerage only applies where planning permission is not in question. It follows from that that nobody would be able to receive compensation for a development for which there was not, and never would be, sewerage provided by the local authority because it contravened the development plan and the local authority did not want to have the development in the place in question. That is a very important point.
Criticism has been made of planning receivers as an idea. I accept that in many respects where companies are the developers and they have gone into liquidation, the receiver will have very few assets to chase after, but that measure was intended to be another weapon for the local authorities to get on with the business of completing unfinished estates and remedying what are undoubtedly social wrongs. It does not mean other remedies have to be thrown aside. It is an extra power. It cannot hurt anyone to put in place an extra power which would in certain circumstances have some advantages.
Look at Mountjoy Square in Dublin where there is a huge shell of a building which has been there for God knows how long. Part of it fell because it was left unfinished for so long. It should be open to a local authority, in the interests of the people who live, work and trade in that area, to say that that eyesore must be completed. It should be open to the local authority to send in somebody to do whatever work is necessary, to take possession of the building and sell it and to make sure it ceases to be the ugly concrete skeleton it is now.
I have probably overshot my limit but, as I indicated earlier, with the permission of the House, I wish to share my time with Deputy Quill.