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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 3 Feb 2000

Vol. 513 No. 5

Planning and Development Bill, 1999 [ Seanad ] : Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Hayes

This side of the House welcomes many parts of the new Planning and Development Bill. Legislation, in whatever order it comes before the House, will not in itself deliver additional housing units on the housing market. There was a good deal of speculation about this matter during last summer when this Bill was first produced. The Minister attempted to present the new Planning and Development Bill to the country as a great panacea which would ultimately sort out the housing crisis, but it is not a panacea. While there are many welcome sections in the Bill, ultimately it will not result in one additional new housing unit on the housing market before at least 2002 or 2003. That point must be emphasised. Legislation will not sort out the housing crisis but rather political action and responsibility.

Over the past two years there have been two fine reports from Dr. Peter Bacon who made specific recommendations on density proposals, local authority house building plans and planning problems. Yet we have still to see those decisions implemented. On the matter of density, there is no point in the Department of the Environment and Local Government publishing guidelines and giving them to each local authority planning department if they are not implemented. We have seen countless examples since the original publication of the density guidelines, particularly in the Dublin area, of local authority planning and development departments not adhering to the guidelines. There are countless examples where, with specific allocations of new housing units, particularly public housing, the guidelines are not adhered to and some local authorities cannot build their allocation of new starts which in a given year.

As was stated by all speakers in the debate yesterday, there are constant problems relating to planning and the absence of planners to expeditiously deal with planning applications which come before local authorities is referred to at every council meeting. Legislation in its primary form or regulations will not sort out the housing crisis. The Department of the Environment and Local Government should take a lead on the issues I have mentioned, such as density, the completion of local authority housing starts and planning, to ensure that good practice is adhered to in local authorities countrywide.

As Deputy Dukes said last night, a raft of legislation has been introduced in the past ten to 20 years by various Governments, but it is not implemented by local authorities. Legislation by itself, therefore, will not sort out the problems.

There are many welcome sections in the Bill. In the Dublin area in particular there is a difficulty in starting various infrastructural projects which should have been completed some time ago. The C-ring around Dublin city is a classic example. The M50 motorway, a key arterial route around the city, still has not been completed 15 to 20 years after it was first proposed.

There are also problems relating to the implementation of Luas. There is no doubt that the planning process is causing major infrastructural difficulties. The problems will become more acute in the next ten years. It is worth contemplating on the population trends the ESRI and others have predicted for the next ten years. According to the last census of 1996, there was a population of 3.6 million people. If the current trends continue, it is reckoned that by 2011, the population will be 4.2 million and by 2016, 20 years from 1996, that figure will be 4.4 million. It is possible that in a 20 year period, the population will have increased by 20% to 25%. The problems this will cause in getting new housing units on the market must be realised and acted upon by the Government.

There will be problems with the population structure in the next ten to 15 years. Ireland's population structure is unusual in comparison with other EU countries as the vast bulk are aged between 19 and 65 years. It is argued that there has been a problem with housing supply in the past five years because those in their thirties, who are at an age when they want to purchase a house, have been unable to do so because of the massive increase in demand. Since 1980 there has been a decline in the birth rate which will provide an opportunity to change the culture of dependency on social welfare etc. In the next ten years the population will increase but will also include more people who are unable to buy houses because of demand.

It is reckoned that in the next ten years 500,000 new homes will have to be built to deal with the housing demand. This is a massive increase in housing output. In 1996, 26,000 units came on the housing market and last year the figure was 48,000. However, it is reckoned we will have to produce 50,000 units every year for the next ten years in order to deal with the demand for houses. The current housing stock is about 1.4 million units – by 2010 and 2011 there could be almost two million. This represents a 25% increase in the total number of housing units. One of the worst recent predictions is that if the current rate of growth in the Dublin area continues, it is likely that in ten years 50% of the population will be living in the Dublin region. That cannot be countenanced. We cannot have 50% of the population living in a radius of 40 miles from Dublin city. That is, to use the Minister's words, not sustainable.

We need to ensure there is better spatial planning and to select the areas where there will be a massive increase in housing demand. The Government has put this process on the long finger. It refused to specify these hubs of development in the national development plan. There is no point in delaying a proposal which needs to be implemented in the next 12 months. The Government has made a curious commitment in the plan – it says it has set up a new unit and that in three years it will have decided the location of the developmental hubs for housing output but it has not made a decision. That is not proper decision making. Many of the commitments in this legislation are highly suspect because the Government is refusing to decide on the new population growth centres. We cannot have 50% of the population living in the Dublin region within ten to 15 years.

There are a number of assumptions to be made. Obviously we need to build more houses quickly. We must utilise our land to provide for the increasing population. We must take a radical look at the development of our cities and towns and ensure that people live in the heart of those communities. We do not want Ireland to be the same as America, where people live on the verge not at the heart of the cities. This needs to be addressed in the Bill. We must plan new developments in a sustainable way – I referred to the establishment of new population growth centres in the next ten years. Politically, long-term decisions must be taken. One of the interesting points in the recent NESC report on capacities and choices is the issue of long-term political decision making. We must decide in the next 12 months where we are going to put the increasing population and we must make those long-term decisions in favour of certain areas. The typical political response of all Governments is to give a little bit to all parts of the country rather than designate certain areas as growth centres.

I wish to address Part V of the Bill and also to discuss the fundamental flaw of the Bill, which is the Minister's failure to deal with the issue of quality and standards in the construction industry. The Minister spoke about the fundamental principles which are supposed to be enshrined in this Bill – sustainable development and a better and more accountable planning process. However, he did not refer to the key aspects of housing supply and demand which are quality and standards. The Government has not treated this issue seriously. The Bill needs to be amended to provide for the establishment of an independent building standards agency which would effectively police the construction industry and guarantee quality to people purchasing houses at a cost of £170,000 and more.

The Department has a building advisory group, but it does not have the resources, it is not enshrined in law and makes virtually no difference. I recently brought the issue of hollow block construction to the Minister's attention. This is one of the greatest scandals emerging in the construction industry. Hollow block construction is recognised worldwide as one of the most deficient forms of construction in terms of its thermal and insulation performance. The vast majority of the houses built by speculative developers in this city are built with hollow blocks as opposed to wooden frames or cavity walls. It is a scandal that the Department will not abolish this form of construction. This is compounded by the fact that a memo sent to the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, in 1998, by a section of the Department of the Environment and Local Government, highlighted the fact that hollow block construction would have to be allowed for in building regulations. That was made clear in a note sent to the Minister in 1998 which stated that the Department would probably have to revise technical guidance document L on the consolidated building regulations sooner than was planned, due to the CO2 emissions target set by the Kyoto Convention, but that it was not desirable to signal this to the outside world just yet because the next leap in building standard insulation would probably involve making it difficult for hollow block construction, used widely in the Dublin area, to survive. This has implications for manufacturers of hollow blocks, builders and the cost of new houses.

This causes conflict for the Minister. He signed the Kyoto and Buenos Aires agreements on the reduction of CO2 emission and is responsible ultimately for the sustainable development policy. How can the Minister, who is trying to meet the targets set out in the Kyoto convention, also be responsible for setting minimum targets for insulation in the construction industry? There is a fundamental conflict, between his responsibilities for road development and for the environment. The Minister has a strong tack when it comes to the car industry but he does not have the same views about the construction industry and the establishment of houses using hollow block construction methods which have been proven to be deficient in terms of insulation.

Yesterday the report "Homes for the 21st Century – the Costs and Benefits of Comfortable Housing for Ireland" was launched and one of its clear conclusions was that standards of thermal efficiency in Irish housing were among the lowest in northern Europe. If we are to build 500,000 new houses in the next ten years, many of them in the Dublin area, we will have to raise the standards of construction techniques. The Building Advisory Group will present its report to the Minister by 2001, with the new guidelines coming into force in January 2005. Five years will be lost during which time it will be permissible for hol low block construction to continue. That represents 25% of new housing stock.

Quality will have to be stitched into the Bill because it is fundamentally flawed. The Minister has refused to face his responsibilities on construction quality. We will revisit this matter on Committee Stage and I will propose the establishment of a separate authority to ensure building standards. That will ensure that continuous problems with builders walking away from housing estates, is dealt with. The Bill does not make any commitment to deal with that issue convincingly.

This Bill gives us an opportunity to get planning and development right for the next 20 years. The Minister was open to suggestions on Committee Stage in the Seanad. I hope he will be as open on Committee Stage in this House.

I welcome the dramatic departure signalled by the Planning and Development Bill, 1999, which envisages a structured hierarchy of plans and the beginning of a strategic approach. It is a huge undertaking and I am concerned that the matter is kept under review, with progress and effectiveness being monitored. Who will be charged with that function? Swift progress is desirable but it is not provided for in existing structures.

The traditional local authority plan will retain its pre-eminence while strategic development zones will be introduced, with the whole process being underpinned by the national development plan. Local authority county development plans will be debated in a more vigorous manner and will receive more attention than they have in the past because the scale of development now outstrips the scale when local authorities were considering their previous plans ten years ago.

It must have been a daunting task for the Minister and his staff to draw up this Bill. I commend them for their work. I welcome the fact that this Bill consolidates nine Acts and five sets of environmental impact assessment regulations. That makes it difficult for anyone outlining the provisions of the Bill to encompass everything in it and to notice every change made. I look forward to debating the Bill on Committee Stage although, if the experience in the Seanad is used as a yardstick, some of us will curse the Bill for the length of time it will take on that Stage. It will, however, be an interesting debate which examines in great detail the changes taking place as a result of the consolidation of so many Acts and regulations, not to mention the new provisions being introduced.

Planning gets a bad press. To an extent, unfair perceptions arise from tribunal coverage, rumour and anecdotal evidence, inconsistency in the decisions made by planners, lack of adequate staffing in local authorities and kite flying by politicians and the media. The poor quality of planning applications can also be a significant factor in some instances. The administrative system is excessively cumbersome. A straightforward planning application must be dealt with by several sections of a local authority when it is lodged; the roads department and sanitary services have to have their say. It is a difficult process through which to go. At first glance it would seem sensible to incorporate all the requirements of planning infrastructure when considering an application but, on occasion, it would be easier if the planning considerations of an application were looked at separately by those responsible.

The whole system is flawed for many reasons. That being the case, it will take much more than legislation to address the problems. The system must, however, have the support and confidence of the public, something it manifestly does not have at present. The Minister cannot address that lack of confidence through legislation or regulation. It manifestly does not have that at the moment. The Minister cannot address this issue by way of legislation or regulation. I compliment him on holding a number of regional seminars while the Bill was being prepared. These seminars were well attended by local authority members and all the interested parties. The feedback was excellent, and much of it is reflected in the Bill. A fundamental difficulty in planning is that applicants or appellants who are disappointed by a specific decision will naturally be disposed to bad-mouthing the system. This is a factor in the perception of planning.

The strategic approach of the Minister, particularly the introduction of local area plans, will help considerably in this regard. It would be extremely successful if there were a high level of local participation in the preparation of local area plans. There is an onus on local authorities, including local authority members in particular areas, to ensure there is the maximum level of participation by people in local communities in the local area plans. Unfortunately, one of the short-term effects of the provision for making local area plans is that local authorities are using the fact that the plans have to be prepared, to defer decisions on existing applications. This is entirely unreasonable. While it is true that the granting of permission in certain areas would have an impact on the long-term development of the area, in the context of the need for housing and in some instances the need to disperse housing pressure from major towns into villages, it is entirely unreasonable and counter-productive that local authorities should take this approach.

This matter needs to be addressed because this should not happen at this juncture. Certainly, local area plans must be prepared but this cannot be used as a reason for wiping out development prospects in villages and towns throughout the country. This would have two detrimental effects. In the first instance, it would prevent affordable housing land coming on stream to provide affordable housing for people and, in the second instance, it would increase the pressure on major towns from Dublin in a national context, to county towns throughout the country. Everyone wishes to see this issue dealt with.

I concur with many of Deputy McGuinness's criticisms in this regard. It is a joke that the Minister and his Department are committed to considerable infrastructural development in many towns and villages throughout the country, developments sought by the local authority through its sanitary services and roads section, while the same local authority is simultaneously refusing to consider plans for housing in the towns and villages where it sought and received the infrastructure because it must wait for the preparation of a local area plan. This type of foot dragging is unacceptable and needs to be addressed in the short-term.

Regardless of what considerations come into play, it seems the biggest single obstacle to providing sufficient housing is the planning process and land usage policy. There is a different culture nowadays to that which existed five, ten or 15 years ago. In many local areas the culture of objection seems to have replaced the compensation culture about which we heard so much three or four years ago. This is no longer confined to the Dublin 4 element who were once accused of sticking their noses into other people's business throughout the country. In many instances local knowledge would suggest that an agenda other than a planning one is at play in many of these objections. The Minister some time ago rightly referred to the activity of those who accept financial inducements to withdraw objections. Clearly, planning consideration is not the factor which encouraged these people to lodge their objections in the first instance. While there are frequently advantages in having the option to withdraw an objection, particularly in relation to An Bord Pleanála, there is good reason to consider removing that option in the context of what has been happening.

In County Clare the county council recently introduced a development plan which drew considerable odium on councillors in respect of one tiny aspect. Any legislation, albeit a budget or matters coming before a local authority, sometimes tends to attract all the media coverage and discussion on just one minor point. Clare local authority members attempted to widen the provision under the 1963 Act which enabled farmers' sons and daughters to obtain due consideration of their applications. However, some might have seen this as preferential treatment. Members believed that families of local people, whether the postman, county council workers, anyone who lived in the area for a long time or had a legitimate employment interest in the area, should also receive a certain level of consideration. Unfortunately, this was portrayed as though they had sought to exclude numerous people who heretofore might have been entitled to due consideration. This was not the case. In fact, they were trying to extend the categories of people who would get favourable consideration as provided for in the 1963 Act. This should be commended as worthy and worthwhile. I am pleased the level of negative media coverage which the proposal received following the draft county development plan stage did not frighten the councillors who adopted the provision in the plan.

Fáiltím freisin roimh úsáid na Gaeilge sa Bhille seo. Choimead mé súil ar an Seanad nuair a bhí an Bille á phlé ann agus bhí roinnt mhaith Seanadóirí a bhfuil suim acu sa Ghaeilge ag glacadh páirt sa diospóireacht. Táim cinnte go bhfuil suim ag an Aire féin ann. Ba chóir go gcoimeadfaimis súil ar an nGaeilge agus ar úsáid na Gaeilge go ginearálta sa Bhille seo. Fáiltím roimhe sin.

There is enormous difficulty in addressing one of the objectives set out by the Minister, that of ensuring the planning process takes due cognisance of sustainable development. As he said in his statement, there is even a difficulty in having a tight definition of sustainable development. The EU directive on strategic environmental assessment is virtually completed and I am pleased the Bill reflects this. I also welcome the undertaking in the Bill to define the relationship between pollution control licensing and planning control. This has hitherto created some difficulties for practitioners. There is quite a deal of confusion among ordinary people regarding the role of the EPA and local authorities. In relation to sustainable development, the Minister's Department obviously treats this issue as a priority, but one wonders if all other Departments are aware of our commitments under the Kyoto Agreement and other requirements. As a nation, we have been lax in this regard and this laxity could cost us dearly.

Another aspect in the Bill is the entire enforcement code. Traditionally, this has been among the two or three most difficult problems in the planning area going back over a very long period. I welcome the manner in which the Minister has strengthened the enforcement code. Much of the bad press to which I referred earlier arises as a result of either laxity in pursuing the enforcement code or lack of clarity in underpinning legislation going back over the nine or ten cases which have been repealed. In the case of large developments in particular, the Minister might consider introducing some type of developer permit for the site rather than the commencement notice required at present. One of the weaknesses of the commencement notice is that it is issued to somebody who frequently has no role in the development of the site. The applicant initially may have been the landowner or somebody who passes it on to another developer at a certain stage. It should be possible to devise a system of permits for developers which would place responsibility for the development specifically on the developer in place at the time. In the event that he transferred that responsibility to somebody else, a further permit would be required so that a local authority, in seeking to enforce the code, could identify somebody specifically in law rather than approach somebody who ceased to have any dealings with the matter five or six legal transactions previously and was entirely out of the picture. I do not know exactly how such a system could be devised, but it should be considered.

I question the proposal in the Bill to transfer responsibility for compulsory purchase orders, local authority EIA projects and road schemes to An Bord Pleanála, notwithstanding the suggested time limit in that regard. There is considerable merit in leaving responsibility where it currently rests. There have been many discussions about An Bord Pleanála and this matter will feature in the Committee Stage debate. The change would create much difficulty and, in many respects, the issue should remain within the remit of the Department.

A major part of the Bill relates to the provision of housing. I was interested in Deputy Hayes's contribution and I agree with his comments about the quality of building. However, my memory is that his party's recent proposal was that 32,000 houses should be built each year. In fairness, that was the ESRI projection two and a half years ago, but I am glad the Deputy's party now agrees with the Minister's view that 50,000 houses per annum might be more appropriate. This aspiration can be reached. It is set against the background of the wish of almost all people to own their own homes. It has served us well and it should be encouraged through Government policy, as the Minister and Minister of State have sought to do.

However, in the current climate, that is obviously impossible for many people and the attempt in the Bill to ensure that the land use policy is not a deterrent to the construction of social and affordable housing is as good a provision as possible. I also welcome the £6 billion provision for social and affordable housing in the national development plan. Unfortunately, local authorities have tended to be less helpful and sympathetic to the providers of social housing than they should have been. I am aware of a case in my county where a social housing provider in the pre-planning stage has already dealt with three different planners and is having difficulty securing a meeting with the person responsible for it.

It is appalling that somebody who is setting about providing social housing in an area where it is urgently needed is not accommodated in every way possible in terms of pre-planning meetings because, ultimately, that system ensures the requirements of the county development plan and county council are likely to be met in the short to medium term. In the context of the current housing difficulties, local authorities should be required to be pro-active in terms of encouraging providers of social and affordable housing rather than be seen to put obstacles in their way or to be less than sympathetic in their dealings with them.

Perhaps this has an historical basis because county councils considered themselves the providers of social housing in the past and they have an obvious role in the provision of affordable housing. However, the agencies involved in the provision of social housing have done a tremen- dous job and have a key role to play in conjunction with the local authorities. An overlap in terms of responsibility is not by any means a justification for local authorities not to help them.

I welcome the Bill and the opportunity it affords the House to discuss planning issues in detail. It is a major overhaul of planning legislation and given the contributions made in the Seanad and this House, it is obvious many aspects are of concern to Members. The purpose of the Bill is to consolidate existing legislation and streamline the planning process. The Bill is overdue and deserves much thought and attention to detail because it will shape the development and planning of the country for many years.

I welcome the attention given to local development plans in the Bill and that there will be co-ordinated plans in regions in the future. At present, each local authority has its own development plan which stops at its boundary. There is not any consultation or co-ordination with adjoining areas. It is important that development plans will now be incorporated in regional planning guidelines. This aspect also focuses attention on the national development plan.

The Bill mentions the regions and how development can be co-ordinated from a small local area plan to a county or borough development plan through to the regional area and on to national level. From the point of view of Government planning, it is unsatisfactory that it is still necessary to wait almost two years for a national spatial plan which will map out the development of the country as a whole in terms of where people will live, how housing densities will develop, industrial regions and transport corridors and routes in areas. The cart is being put before the horse. It may be two years before the spatial plan is available but the national development plan was published recently. If that goes ahead, it may be in contravention of some aspects of the spatial plan when it is released. This is disturbing. We are racing ahead with one programme while the spatial plan has not yet been produced.

Local development plans will provide a foundation block for the future of areas. However, it is essential that they are co-ordinated in terms of boundaries to ensure smooth, efficient systems can be developed for the population and communities of those areas. It does not make sense that one local authority should develop housing units or even estates if it has not co-ordinated them with transportation systems which may cross local authority boundaries.

Regarding local plans, I am disappointed the Bill excludes suburbs because there are major problems in many of the areas developed near towns and cities. The current population limit for such areas is 1,500 but I am aware of an application in my area, close to where I live, for 700 houses. This would instantly create such a population on the basis of 2.2 people per house and probably exceed the 1,500 limit recommended in the Bill. Other speakers mentioned this aspect and it must be considered. Local areas are building blocks and this should be incorporated in the development plan.

Certain plans are important to the public. Third parties and interested bodies can have their say and make an input to the future of their areas. Many development plans have received much criticism because they are obsolete by the time they are introduced. Matters have moved on and there has been pressure from developers to develop areas which may not be suitable for housing or part of a development plan. However, times change and the development plans in many areas must catch up as it is produced.

Many local authorities are currently working under outdated development plans which do not take account of housing demands and needs and transport and road infrastructure. Planners did not anticipate the economic boom or the large number of immigrants. They did not anticipate the demand for certain types of houses. Given that many young people wish to live alone there is a huge demand for one and two-bedroom dwellings. For various reasons families break up, couples separate, and the female moves to a smaller housing unit with the children and the father has to find accommodation for himself. There is a need, therefore, for different types of housing units. This type of development was not anticipated. Many old people would like to move out of their large family homes close to city centres but there are no alternative houses for them and no consideration has been given to the need for different house types.

It is interesting to note that the demographic norm in European cities is that families with children account for only 25% of households. In the United Kingdom 800,000 homes will be required in London in the next 25 years, 80% of which will be occupied by one person. The number of family homes throughout Europe is reducing. We have not got to that stage yet but we are getting there. Social trends need to be incorporated in our development plans.

A positive aspect of the Bill is that it includes a housing strategy. It is essential that each local authority examines the needs of its area and its future housing requirements. Cork Corporation, of which I am a member, has consulted widely with housing bodies and voluntary housing organisations, and is producing its housing strategy. This will be an essential plank of our development plan.

There has been much criticism of the large sprawling suburbs in Dublin and Cork. Many of these areas are in my constituency which have been allowed to develop on an ad hoc basis, acres of housing responding to a demand but with no co-ordination and development. There are up to 3,000 houses in some of these areas. In my constituency, Grange, Donnybrook and Rochestown have no schools and have little or no public trans port. Public representatives are constantly requested to put in place footpaths in these areas.

It is unsatisfactory that housing estates can be built without the correct infrastructure being put in place. Priority should be given to the provision of infrastructure. How can we expect people to live in these areas if proper infrastructure is not in place? What type of lifestyles will they lead? In many parts in Meath and Kildare there is a similar lack of infrastructure with acres of housing. There is no provision for those who have to queue to get out of their housing estates to take their children to schools outside the area. Given that there is not a proper public transport system, the people must use cars. This in turn means they queue in traffic jams to get on to the main roads and to their places of work, school or wherever. This type of planning must cease.

A development plan should include planning for infrastructure which should be put in place before any houses are built. Many of the areas to which I referred have populations greater than the towns of Mitchelstown, Fermoy or Midleton and they do not even have a local shop, a church or a school which is an essential part of a community and its development.

Planning and development plans, words used regularly by local authority members, dictate people's quality of life. In regard to Cork Corporation's development plan, there is little comment from people in local areas about how their areas should be improved. Development plans are an important element of the future of this country and how we will alleviate the stresses under which people live. We may have a great deal of money and a Celtic tiger economy, but we have a huge demand for housing and a society living under much pressure because of the many jungles created in our cities and their suburbs.

Landscape is a word which heretofore has not been mentioned in development plans. I am pleased it is included in this Bill. Landscape does not mean the mere planting of trees and grass verges. For many urban dwellers it means concrete walls, brick walls and hard structures. I was struck recently by a comment from a landscape architect who said most of our children who live in urban areas get up in the morning and, because of the lack of a proper public transport system, travel to school by car. All they see from the car windows – those who are tall enough to see out – are bus shelters, some of which are broken, plastic signs, litter and concrete or brick walls. They see very little greenery. This has a psychological impact on children and the population as a whole. We live in a beautiful country which has magnificent sights and breathtaking views. Many of us visit these places only for a week in the summer or at weekends. The area in which people live on a daily basis is an essential part of their lives and the psychological effect of the landscape on the nation as a whole has to be borne in mind.

A recent study in the United Kingdom examined this issue. There was much thinking around the old tradition of having green belt areas around our cities and towns but that is irrelevant to many people. People know there is a green belt ten or 15 miles from their housing estate but they do not benefit from it. They want their own green patch. We need to create more green belts and plant more trees in city centres, towns and villages. I welcome the inclusion of the landscape in the development plans. At the end of every development plan there should be a question asking how many trees, green areas and pleasant surroundings have been provided so that the development will have a positive impact both aesthetically and in terms of quality.

The word "sustainability" is incorporated in the Bill but it is difficult to define. I was struck by a description from the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland which said the word "sustainable" should be linked to or substituted by the word "quality". A quality development would be aesthetically pleasing. The Kyoto principles, to which Ireland has signed up, were mentioned this morning. The quality of our buildings and their structure must be examined if we are to reduce our output of carbondioxide, which is an important part of the Minister's agenda. Many of the homes being built today are not sustainable from that point of view. Lines and lines of the same type of housing is not aesthetically pleasing.

In my county there is a village scheme of 50 houses where there is a proposal for a development of between 150 and 200 houses which will completely change the nature of the village. Acre after acre of houses of the same type is not sustainable development and it is something which should be looked at. We all recognise that we must development these communities which are within five miles of the city centre due to the pressure to provide houses, but one should not be allowed to build 200 houses of the same type in such an area. Sites should be given over to people to build individual houses and the type of housing unit should be varied. The impact on the existing village must be addressed.

Many local authorities do not employ an architect. There are only seven city or county architects. This is a pity. If there could be more architectural input to the development plans it would improve their quality. A proposed development or house should be scrutinised on the basis of how it will improve the visual aspect of the area and whether it will be sustainable rather than merely whether it will fit in. Therefore, an architectural input as well as a planning input is essential.

One purpose of the Bill is to speed up the planning process, but I have grave doubts that the personnel exist to do that. There is only one school, University College Dublin, turning out 25 planners a year. Last night the Minister mentioned in his speech that he had been in consultation with UCD. I am glad to hear it. I had hoped he would have addressed this with the Minister for Education and Science also. Sadly there are too few planners. The Minister is aware of this and he has addressed it, but I have grave doubts that he will be in a position to enforce the measures in the Bill because of a lack of personnel and expertise in the areas required. Each year the 25 graduates are snapped up by private enterprises which are becoming conscious of the need to produce more professional planning applications. This is a real concern. The Minister can produce all the legislation in the world but if he does not have the personnel to implement it, then the whole thing will collapse.

Part V has gained the most attention in the media and elsewhere. Whereas I agree that we must look at social inclusion, we have made many mistakes in cities and towns. Acres of social housing were built in the past and integration was not on top of the agenda. We all agree that we have made mistakes, but the developers to whom I have spoken have grave doubts about the feasibility of Part V.

Part V will create more exclusion in itself. If up to 20% of an area is to be set aside for social housing, will the houses be of a different quality to that of the other houses in the area? Will it be fenced off or walled in? I have seen examples like this. The words "up to 20%" are open to interpretation. Can a local authority pick one developer over another if it gets its nose out of joint about one of them? This has the potential to be unfair.

I welcome the opportunity to discuss the major planning issues. There are many other matters involved and, as a Member of the Select Committee on the Environment and Local Government, I look forward to working on the Bill on Committee Stage.

I have waited for several months to debate the Bill and I welcome it. Last year when it was published it generated a great deal of controversy. In my few short years in public life since 1997 when I was elected to the Dáil, the matter of planning has been the most contentious issue in County Laois. Listening to my colleagues in the Opposition, the situation seems to be the same in most other counties and cities. Since I became a member of Laois County Council last summer, I have had a further insight into the planning activities of local authorities and I want to share some of those views with the House.

I acknowledge that the Bill brings together many other Acts which dealt with planning and development over the years, but it is not a consolidation Bill. It is a misnomer to refer to this as a consolidation Bill although many people have referred to it as a consolidation Bill. A consolidation Bill consolidates a number of Bills but nothing new is added.

There are many positive aspects to the Bill and I am pleased to deal with some of them. However, there are a number of other issues which I would like to see included in the Bill and I ask the Minister to take on board my suggestions on Committee Stage. I also have a number of questions for the Minister which I hope he will deal with when he replies and during the passage of the Bill through the House.

One of the biggest issues in planning is the question of planning by public authorities versus an application by a private individual. I recognise that the Bill is a major step in modernising, streamlining and improving the planning process. Ultimately I look forward to coming into this House to debate a Bill, the main thrust of which will be to remove the sections dealing with exempted developments. For many people the principal problem is planning applications by public bodies, be they local authorities, roads authorities, housing authorities or government Departments. It is wrong that any statutory body can build a structure anywhere without having to go through the same planning process as every other private citizen. It is something we in Parliament must ultimately accept. I know there are great administrative and convenient reasons for it, but it is not good enough in this day and age that public bodies can attempt to short-circuit the procedures which apply to everybody else when making planning applications.

Recently we have seen examples of this. I am critical of a number of the public bodies who have proposed major developments which, traditionally, they might have felt should be exempted. They need to understand that when a public body must go through Part X and it is exempted from going through the planning application process, the body is only exempted from filling out the planning application form and receiving formal planning permission. Every other aspect of planning the development should and must conform with the standards which would apply if the application was from a private individual.

To take as an example, the proposed spike at O'Connell Bridge, the fact that Dublin Corporation did not opt to undertake an environmental impact study before it announced the plans was indicative of the arrogance of the local authority. No private individual could have attempted to put that there without having produced such a report. The same has happened in relation to the Kildare by-pass which affects everybody travelling south from Dublin by road. If a private developer had intended putting a motorway along that route, he would have been obliged to go through all the environmental procedures. I am critical of local authorities who feel that these issues do not apply to them because they do not have to go through the normal planning process. The normal planning concerns apply to them the same as everybody else. They must understand that they have to apply the same standards to themselves as they would apply to an application from a private citizen.

If there is a proposal to build a big new office development with car parking and other services in any town or city, the application should be judged on its merits in terms of the scale of proper planning and development. It should not be judged on who is the owner of the individual development – i.e., if it is a Government development it does not require planning permission, but if it is being built by a private developer it does. The same procedures should apply to both.

That leads to a far bigger issue of who should adjudicate on these plans. Ultimately, we will have to set up a separate division within An Bord Pleanála to adjudicate and decide upon planning applications by public bodies. Obviously, it would be improper for a local authority to submit a planning application to itself. To an extent that matter is dealt with under section 10, but it undermines public confidence when a local authority is essentially both the applicant and the adjudicator.

The planning system has come in for much criticism from the general public over a number of years. Some of that criticism is merited but some is not. In many instances it is not the system that is at fault but a lack of personnel. There are planning delays in every local authority, but if a good application is submitted by a proper professional planner, who knows everything that is involved in submitting a good application, it should go through smoothly. In such a case, there should be no need to come back for further information and clarification on that extra information some months later. These are the issues that are causing problems but if people involved in planning nationwide were submitting higher quality applications in the first instance many of the difficulties could be avoided.

When appeals go to An Bord Pleanála they seem to take several months to be dealt with. The legislation obliges the board to deal with them within four months but that does not happen in the vast majority of cases where people can be informed that a decision will not be reached for some more months. That has led to people incorrectly concluding that An Bord Pleanála's procedures are wrong, but they are not. The system is correct; it is just that there are not enough staff to operate it as legislated for by this House on previous occasions. Unfortunately, these issues give the planning process a bad name in some instances when all that is required are additional staff and resources to process the applications in a prompt and proper manner.

Earlier I cited the example of the Kildare by-pass where people wrongly criticised the planning process for causing the delays involved. However, the delays are solely the responsibility of the people who planned the motorways in the first place, without taking due consideration of all the issues that they are ultimately being forced to consider by the European Union. Had those people done the work properly from day one and engaged in the proper consultation and research – including environmental impact statements and considering the proposed location – it would not have been delayed in court or in Europe. The reason for the delay is that those responsible for the initial plans did not get them right. Blaming the system for that is like trying to find a scapegoat.

Another reason for such delays is when a judicial review is taken to the High Court, and sometimes to the Supreme Court. Those delays are not due to the planning process. The fact that it takes so long for a case to be heard in court is not the fault of the planning process, it is due to the backlog of cases. The answer to solving those problems is to ensure that the courts service is provided in a speedier manner. People who are frustrated by planning delays start blaming the system and everybody involved in it, while they should more accurately focus their criticism where it belongs. In other words, if people got their plans right in the first place there would not be as many objections later on.

Will the Minister clarify the role of public representatives in making representations on behalf of constituents to a local authority on a planning matter? The Bill contains provisions for a fee to be paid by people who wish to make a planning application, lodge an objection or be informed of the outcome to either process. A public representative who is not personally involved in the process is not making an objection and is not providing any information one way or the other in respect of the planning application, but if he or she is making a representation on behalf of a constituent in connection with information that should properly already be in the planning file, they should not come in with new information on a planning application. It is the duty of the person making the application, or the objectors, to provide that information themselves. TDs, Senators or councillors are really only making representations to follow up what is already in the system. There should be no fee for doing so, otherwise it is one way of taking the public representatives out of the system. If there is a hidden agenda to take away the one element of public consultation we have in the planning system, I would like to see that attitude changed.

Perhaps there is a concern that people will go to the local public representative to submit a letter on their behalf, thereby avoiding the fee for lodging an objection. It should be specified that where a representation by a public representative includes new information relevant to the planning application it should attract a fee, but only if it attempts to provide information for or against the application. If, on the other hand, the representation arises from a public meeting and consists of issuing a letter in support of, or against, a particular planning application, the public representative should not have to pay a fee. That should be taken into account by the Minister on Committee Stage.

In general, the Bill introduces a more open procedure for drawing up county development plans. Such development plans will now have a six year term and the Bill will ensure that the delay in introducing new plans will not be a feature in future. The last development plan in County Laois was passed in 1991, and is almost nine years old at this stage. I will return to that point in more detail later. I welcome the introduction of a time limit in the Bill so that there will be no way out in future.

I am pleased to see that a housing strategy will be necessary as part of the county development plan, both for private and social housing. The strategy should also include a policy for housing members of the travelling community – an issue that too many local authorities have dodged in the past.

I still do not know what "sustainable development" means and it is not defined in the Bill. I am worried that it will mean different things to different people, depending on whom one is talking to. I would like to see more guidelines to provide a clearcut understanding on this matter for the general public. I am afraid that various planning officers in different local authorities will interpret that phrase in whatever way suits them. I would appreciate clarification from the Minister on that point.

The Bill proposes a streamlined procedure for varying development plans and it will also facilitate the provision of public infrastructure. There is, however, a major question mark over this. Traditionally, a local authority may have wanted to consult with the ESB, Eircom or Bord Gáis about where such infrastructure is to be provided so that it can be taken into account in the county development plan.

However, now that many of these traditional public infrastructure services are being provided by private operators, how will we differentiate between services provided by State or semi-State organisations and those provided by the private sector?

We must understand what is meant by "public infrastructure". This will present a real practical difficulty. Telecommunications companies which wish to build up their business in particular regions will not want to outline their plans in public as part of the preparation of a draft county development plan and it would, perhaps, be unfair to expect them to do so. Nevertheless, there is a real issue here which must be addressed. In the past, a town's main street could be dug up over a period of months by Bord Gáis then Telecom Éireann, then the local authority for water services and then for sewerage services. That is bad enough, but there would be mayhem if that were added to by three or four telecommunication service providers. I understand the rationale behind the provision, but I would like to see how it will operate in practice.

The type of business which can take place in the strategic development zones must be specified early in the process. I would like the Minister to clarify if that is the intention. It is not enough to have a bland blanket designation of an area as a strategic development zone without specifying whether it is for office, commercial, light industry, heavy industry or dirty industry use. People are entitled to know that in the early stages, rather than having it foisted on them when it is too late to object.

I am pleased there are strong enforcement provisions outlined in the Bill. I am particularly pleased there is provision, subject to the consent of the High Court, to refuse a grant of planning permission to any developer who has seriously failed to comply with a previous permission, such as leaving a housing estate unfinished. This has been a source of outrage of many people living in housing estates for many decades. I am also pleased that local authorities will have a legal obligation to take housing estates in charge. There have been too many difficulties between developers and local authorities and it is good this provision is included in the Bill.

The recently enacted architectural heritage Act has been fully incorporated into this Bill, thus making the conservation of the built heritage a central concern of development and planning control. I would like clarification of the position in relation to archaeological heritage.

In regard to county development plans, there is a possible loophole in section 241(2)(b) in terms of County Laois. The section states that where a county has already started work on its draft development plan, it can proceed with it. Laois County Council is currently about four years working on its draft development plan. I would like the intent of the original Bill to be followed, that is, where there is not a new development plan councils will be asked to set about drawing up a new development plan within one year of the commencement of the Act. We have been in the draft development stage for four years and I would like that loophole dealt with. I would like to see a new county development plan for County Laois.

I welcome the emphasis on the full development of a county, rather than just specific scheduled towns. There was an over-emphasis on that in the past and the rural areas were overlooked. In many counties, at least half the population live in rural areas. Those areas should be fully incorporated in future county development plans.

I wish to contribute to this debate primarily as a member of two local authorities, Wexford County Council and Enniscorthy Urban District Council. Since last year's local elections, I have had some firsthand experience of dealing with the planning process. While the legislation has many welcome features, it does not seem to get to grips with the real world with which I am dealing. Planning has become one of the most time consuming issues I must deal with at my clinics. In 1997 Wexford County Council had a little over 1,000 planning applications, last year it had 3,700. The demand for planning permission has exploded. They can vary from a single house to a scheme involving 500 houses.

The planning department of Wexford County Council cannot cope, through no one's fault. The problem is the lack of planning staff. In the past year, three planning executives were recruited, all of whom left after less than a month for the private sector or other local authorities. The scale of demand for planning decisions in eastern counties is incredible. This does not apply to just Meath, Kildare and Wicklow – the counties closest to Dublin – but is spreading to Carlow and elsewhere. In my constituency, there is demand from tourism developments and also from people who have sold semi-detached houses for extraordinary sums in Dublin and want to retire to cheaper housing in the country or people who are tired of the traffic in Dublin or of rearing their children there and want a better quality of life by living 70 miles from Dublin and commuting once or twice a week. The planning process cannot cope with the explosion in demand, as described in the Bacon report and elsewhere.

Well meaning laws and regulations are not enough, we also need reasonable conditions for staff. I am told our planners are in the office until 11 p.m. trying to cope with the volume of work. The amount of work before Christmas was incredible. We need to train more planners and remunerate planning executives at a level which ensures they stay in the public and local authority sector. What is being done to plan the manpower needs of planning executives? If this is happening in Wexford, it is happening everywhere. The aspirations in the national development plan will not be met unless this is dealt with. Enforcement will go out the window if a statutory decision must be made within 30 days of receiving further particulars or within 60 days of the original application because the people dealing with the requirements for a planning decision are too busy. The current staffing level is crazy.

We need a spatial development plan immediately. It is unwise to proceed with a national development plan which cannot be delivered without a spatial plan. That involves three nationally designated regional centres of growth. Six large towns must be selected to be made cities by 2010. That means they must have third level colleges and the necessary transport, rail links, infrastructure and so on. The local authorities can then decide whether the north, east, west or south of that city should be developed and how all the services will be put together in tandem.

The alternative is to have an increasing level of the population living in the greater Dublin area and a continuous stream of housing along its perimeters. Mass housing development on the southside used extend as far as Sallynoggin and Cabinteely but it now extends as far as Greystones and Delgany. This is resulting in huge commuting demand. It takes me an hour and ten minutes to get from Loughlinstown Hospital to the Dáil on Tuesday mornings. That is crazy for people who must commute that distance every day. People have been forced to live out that far because house prices in the city are so high.

However, Colm McCarthy and others from DKM Limited told the Committee on Public Enterprise and Transport that there are brown piebald sites in this city which are derelict. I cannot understand why we cannot use all the CPO and other powers to identify derelict sites in the city and have proper in-fill schemes as there is a demand for residential development. That would reduce the commuting requirement and so on. We need to identify those sites. We need proper Dublin in-fill, six designated cities and to pick out about a dozen provincial towns with populations of about 7,000-10,000 and make them into towns of critical mass. The difference between Margaret Heffernan, Tesco or Fergal Quinn deciding to open a new shopping centre in a town is the critical mass of population and the knowledge that land has been zoned and plans have been put in place to upgrade towns into major towns, equivalent in size to Navan, Drogheda or Wexford. Provincial towns, such as Enniscorthy, Athy and so on, can be upgraded.

A different tiered approach needs to be taken. Until we do that, and despite the projected 20% increase in population and 25% projected increase in the number of housing units over the next 15 years, things will be done on the basis of market forces. It will be ad hoc and sporadic and we will have more transport chaos and it will be done in a totally unplanned way based on who makes planning applications for what. I cannot emphasise enough that unless we have adequate staff in our planning departments and a national spatial plan with all these regional and local development plans, we are going nowhere.

Often an anecdote outlines exactly what is wrong with the planning process. There are two major impediments to the Celtic tiger – one is the shortage of staff to sustain it and the other is the planning process. I have a friend and constituent who is a well known national building developer who constructs houses to a very high standard. He has a particular housing estate development outside Waterford city, and there is nothing particularly special about. However, he has spent nearly a year going through the proper high-spec standard of requirements of the local authority – that is fine – and he finally got planning permission. Needless to say, with the current objective culture, people who were glad to get houses objected to An Bord Pleanála and that went through the process. The Legislature set out time limits for An Bord Pleanála to deal with matters but at the end of the time limit, the board sent a letter saying this case was such that it needed an extension in the time limit. The time limits do not work and do not matter. That went through and he got planning permission a year and a half later.

Now he is being told by Dúchas, the Heritage Service, that he has to get an archaeological excavation licence from the National Monuments and Historic Property Service. He said that was fine and he would apply for a licence. He got a letter from Dúchas to say that at present there is a serious backlog of archaeological excavation licence applications waiting to be processed. It said the problem was compounded by an inability to update its essential database or maintain its archive of applications and incoming reports in such a way that the professional integrity of the archaeological licence system is undermined. This was a circular letter sent to everyone applying for such a licence. It also said urgent measures were required in order to resolve these problems and, therefore, no excavation licence applications would be processed from Monday, 17 January 2000, for a period of seven to eight weeks. It will not even receive a goddamn application form let alone process one.

We can have all the time limits and processes we like but this particular procedure has put this project in a state of paralysis. Of course it is a different Department and Minister and one goes from Billy to Jack and everybody's business is nobody's business. We wonder why we cannot build enough houses for our people and why we need a Bacon report to know why house prices are going beyond the reach of people's wages. It is simply that not enough houses are being built. It is a simple fact of supply and demand. The supply is not matching the demand for houses and the reason is that the planning process cannot cope.

I want somebody to contact Dúchas to find out exactly what are its database problems, problems with incoming reports, what is the staffing situation and what urgent measures are being put in place to solve these problems. That means the whole system is as strong as the weakest link and it does not work. I can give the Minister the details of the particular case but I can assure him that letter sent by Dúchas to a particular applicant is not exceptional. That was sent on 18 January 2000 and everyone who applies for a licence is being told not to do so. They cannot, therefore, go ahead because one of the conditions of planning is that one must get an archaeological excavation licence.

Part V deals with housing. Housing and transport are the two major political problems we face. Young couples on good wages and in good secure jobs cannot afford a house. That, coupled with the fact we have 45,000 applications for local authority housing, clearly shows that we have a housing crisis. It will get worse because demand will increase at a pace more rapid than that in which we will be able to supply houses. The Minister's response to this affordability issue was the 20% condition in relation to social or affordable housing for every land zone and housing development proposal.

As I understand, up to 20% will be earmarked for this particular social programme. In broad terms, there is a certain laudable dimension to that. We have ghettos of social exclusion. Areas have been built on a large scale in which there are horrendous social problems. A good example is Ballybeg in Waterford. There is a part of Limerick city and several parts of Dublin about which one could say the same. Without in any way stigmatising them, people know the problems they have if applying for jobs from such addresses. There is the problem of early school leavers as well as other problems. I can see that the right geographic socio-economic mix is a good thing.

When I was Minister I found that the important thing when dealing with civil servants was to tell them the outcome I required and not lay down the way to do something. If one did not get the outcome, that was all that mattered. In my view, the outcome here will not work. The CIF and others, for their own reasons, said they will challenge the constitutionality of this proposal. If one looks at the terms of this proposal, the specific percentage will vary from one local authority area to another when one takes into account the existing land bank of the local authority. What is being imposed is a random imposition. Anything as uncertain as a random imposition will mean there will be debate. They will seek to minimise the 20% to 2% or whatever. There will be much wrangling during the planning process as to what will be the affordable housing element and a legal wrangle in the Supreme Court, which will take at least two years, as to whether this law is valid in relation to property rights. The Minister will be long gone out of the Department by the time this is resolved.

It would be much better to be honest with the people and say that we will build 10,000 local authority houses per year, we will develop the sanitary services on 29,000 acres throughout the country to ensure affordable housing and the scale of housing development will be met, we will give a tax break to private developers to build social housing, we will try to cut a deal with the CIF to up the number of affordable houses and that we will have particular schemes whereby the land banks of local authorities will be dedicated to affordable housing, which is a critical area.

Land bank management by local authorities at present is totally ad hoc. I would like a senior staff officer in every local authority, as part of their plans under this Bill, assigned to the job of having a land bank management policy for the next ten years. In other words, when they sell land, they must make plans to buy land. The critical factor in future local authority housing will be the availability of land banks in the ownership of the local authority. There is a gap in this regard. The provisions of sections 80 and 81 will not work. While I would welcome any measure that will bring about affordable and social housing construction, I do not believe this will achieve that.

Development plans were referred to Wexford County Council and Enniscorthy Urban District Council are in the middle of preparing a draft development plan. Various extensions of time and so on have been considered. The consultants who were hired came up with a proposal that Enniscorthy would cater for an extra 216 houses over a five year period. I have single applications for 239 houses. It is farcical to have that limited an outlook over a five year period. We are going back to the drawing board, whether with new consultants or whoever, to radically rezone extra land to ensure there is a scale of development that will bring prices down. We must try to ensure that our development plans meet the changing situation.

A development plan drawn up in the 1970s or 1980s is different from a current development plan of any east coast town or county. It is different because there has been an explosion in the demand for houses. To deal with this, each local authority should be furnished with the population trend data Dr. Bacon examined and the data examined by the ESRI which indicated that 40% more houses will be needed on the east coast over the next ten years to meet demand. This information is not being made available to councillors. Although we are told it is the unique preserve of councillors to make these decisions, the wider picture is not being made available to councillors in provincial towns in the east coast to assist them in making the proper arrangements.

The role of councillors is paramount to development plans. Day to day planning decisions are an executive function and management decision of councils. The information being made available is not being localised in a regional context. While regional authorities have been set up, I have not received one letter stating, "Dear Councillor, In the context of your development plan for the south east region, we believe you should take the following factors into consideration." From my national political role and experience of understanding the wider picture, I have tried to relay the position. While we have set up structures, they have little or no interaction to population trends and settlement requirements. That is a wider point in relation to the settlement strategy about which I spoke.

I welcome many provisions in the Bill. There is a need to update planning law. For instance, I would like the excavation licence procedure sorted. I would like the 20% requirement for social housing renegotiated on a pragmatic, commercial basis to ensure it will work. I ask that the housing policy in this area should involve the appointment of a new senior staff officer for land bank management in each local authority. We should make a commitment to build 10,000 local authority houses a year to get to grips with the numbers on the waiting lists.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Wright.

Ireland's planning system is based primarily on the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963. That ground-breaking legislation came into effect in October 1964 and introduced for the first time a statutory control system to regulate the granting or otherwise of planning applications. There has been a large body of planning regulations since then, reflecting the expansion of the statutory development control system to meet the demands from economic growth and rising public concern in the area of environmental control matters. The advent of such legislation has also been brought about by the public who have demanded that a statutory and independent planning appeals system be set up. There is also a growing European dimension to planning issues, particularly in the environmental field, which arises from our membership of the European Union.

The physical planning system is administered by 88 local planning authorities, 20 county councils, five county borough corporations, five borough corporations and 49 urban district councils. Ireland is unique among European countries in that it has an independent third party planning appeals system, which is operated by An Bord Pleánala. The Bill gives many new powers to the board.

Primary planning law is contained in nine Acts dating from 1963 to 1999 and five sets of environmental impact assessment regulations. The Bill before us is designed to consolidate the aforementioned Acts and much of the environmental impact assessment regulations into one Bill for the benefit of all users of the planning system. As well as consolidating existing provisions, the Bill contains significant new policy changes and initiatives.

I will analyse some of the provisions in the Bill. It is large with 245 sections set out in 18 Parts and six Schedules. Part 1 contains provisions of a general nature and amends some of the provisions from the 1963 Act. The introduction of planning controls for initial afforestation and peat extraction operations is an important change from the exemption of agriculture from the planning control system.

Part II provides for development plans and for putting in place local area plans and regional planning guidelines. It also details the powers of the Minister to issue policy directives and guidelines on planning matters. Under Part II it is provided that a planning authority must make a development plan every six years. An assessment must also be made of the likely effects on the environment of implementing a plan. The preparation of a draft plan must commence not later than four years after the making of the previous plan and must be completed within one year.

If the members of a local authority decide to make a material alteration to a draft plan, a public notification and consultation procedure must be followed. The plan must be made not later than six years after the making of the previous plan.

Planning authorities will be entitled to make a local area plan for any particular area. Integrated area plans prepared under the Urban Renewal Act, 1988, are also accorded this status. It must, however, be noted that at all times local area plans remain subordinate to the development plan, which sets out the general planning strategy for the whole area.

Part II provides for regional guidelines. These guidelines will provide a long-term strategic planning framework for the development of the region, covering such issues as population trends, transport and waste matters. The timeframe for the operation of regional guidelines will be longer than the normal duration of development plans.

Part III deals with development control systems. Planning decisions must now be based on taking into account the proper planning and sustainable development of an area. Explicit provision is made, for the first time, for third parties to make submissions or observations on a planning application, which must be taken into account by a planning authority on making its decision. Time limits for the consideration of planning applications are being speeded up. The time limit for the consideration of a planning application is now set at eight weeks. Where a planning authority seeks further information, which it deems necessary for consideration of a planning application, it will have a further four weeks for consideration of the application from the receipt of the information instead of the two months under the present system. A four week appeal limit will be set for appeals to any planning decisions.

Part IV simply re-enacts the provisions of the 1999 Planning and Development Bill on the protection of architectural heritage.

Part V, the most far-reaching part of the Bill, deals with planning matters governing the need to boost our housing supply. This Part provides for housing strategies to be prepared by planning authorities for inclusion as part of any development plan. This is in order that planning authorities can ensure adequate land is zoned for housing in general and, in particular, for sufficient social and affordable housing.

Section 79 contains the definition of eligibility to qualify for affordable housing. In the original published Bill, an eligible person was defined as a person who could not obtain a sufficient mortgage to purchase a house on the basis of a loan two and a half times the principal income. This definition has been redefined to include persons whose mortgage repayments would exceed 34% of income tax and PRSI. A mortgage for the purposes of applying the 35% eligibility test is defined as a loan for 90% of the price of a dwelling that meets the accommodation requirements of the person or household concerned.

Section 80 sets out the general obligation on planning authorities to prepare a housing strategy for insertion in their development plans. Subsection (3) provides that a housing strategy must have regard to the need for social housing, the need to ensure that housing is available for all people on different levels of income, the need to ensure the availability of an adequate mixture of house types to cater for increased demand and the need to counteract social segregation, including assistance for the disabled.

Section 80 also permits the making of a joint housing strategy between two or more auth orities. For example, it makes sense for a county council and an urban district council to make a joint housing strategy which could then be reflected as appropriate within the individual development plans.

Section 82 provides that a planning authority may attach a condition to a planning permission in relation to land to which a social or affordable housing objective applies requiring a developer to enter into an agreement with the planning authority.

There is now an express provision enabling the authority and the developer to enter an agreement which would result in the developer building the social or affordable houses at an agreed cost and transferring them to the local authority on completion. This type of arrangement would in some circumstances be advantageous to both the local authority and to the developer. The local authority would get the houses more quickly than otherwise and the whole development could be built in a more coherent and integrated manner. The local authority must indicate to the developer its intentions with regard to the type of housing it proposes to build on the transferred land. Financial disputes between landowners and local authorities concerning this provision can be referred to An Bord Pleanála. It is only the local authority or the developer who can bring such disputes to An Bord Pleanála for resolution.

The provision of adequate housing for all members of society has been a major issue of public policy for this Government since it assumed office. This State has a history of very high home ownership. Ireland has the highest rate of home ownership in Europe. The State has a responsibility to assist those who cannot afford to house themselves in the marketplace and this is the key objective in the provisions of Part V of Bill concerning social housing needs.

I wish to emphasise one point in this regard. In the debate on the Bill in the Seanad before Christmas, the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, categorically stated that the Government is not shifting its housing responsibilities on to developers. He stated that the Government is trying to bring about a situation whereby the shortage of social and affordable housing for the lower and middle income sections of our community is addressed within the structures of the planning system.

By any standard the Bill will be one of the most far-reaching and fundamental items of legislation to be enacted by this Government in its two and half years in office. While there has been extensive comment and debate in respect of the social housing provisions included in Part V, it is fair to say that the Bill involves much more than that specific policy change. The Bill will change our planning system for all time and it will modernise our procedures, through the enhanced and specific new powers being given to planning authorities and to An Bord Pleanála. It is a bold item of legislation and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Demp sey, must be congratulated for his courage in bringing forward such far-reaching and balanced policy changes.

I wish to zone in on a number of specific aspects on the Bill. People's housing needs is an issue of major importance with which Members must deal. As previous speakers stated, between 60% and 70% of people who attend our clinics, etc., raise the issue of their housing needs. It is, therefore, timely that the Bill has been introduced and I understand it will be enacted, with the support of all parties, before Easter.

Unlike Deputy Yates, who has difficulties with Part V, I believe the amendments the Minister made in the Seanad to make 20% of land holdings available for social and affordable housing will succeed. The area I represent, Fingal, is probably one of the fastest growing in the country. Today, seven of the largest development companies in Ireland are approaching agreement with the county management team on the commitment in respect of social and affordable housing. The Bill will introduce an atmosphere of flexibility which will allow the provisions in Part V to work. The industry realises that it has obligations which must be met and its members recognise that the amendments introduced by the Minister in the Seanad will afford them the opportunity to do so.

I do not believe social housing integration can be engineered. I would prefer it if we followed the model used in my area at present. Five or six of the largest companies in the building industry have submitted action plans to Fingal County Council and consulted with the housing, planning and county management teams. I am informed by sources on the council that there is no detectable resistance from members of the industry in respect of this matter.

Fingal County Council is already dealing with this area on the basis of the provisions being introduced in the Bill. That is the way forward. In my opinion the shared ownership-affordable housing schemes will work. With proper design procedures and with the industry and county management working together, we will see a radical reversal of the difficulties experienced by young people trying to buy houses.

In my area, because of massive investment in recent years, the council intends to build 1,400 shared ownership units. I am pleased to note that under the terms of the Bill one third of the units built in every council scheme will be designated for sale under the shared ownership scheme. That is a positive way of achieving social integration. It will also give young couples an opportunity to live in the area in which they grew up.

I wish now to raise an issue to which previous speakers referred. Without efforts being made in relation to staffing levels in local authorities, the plans we are putting in place will not be implemented. The level of applications being made to Fingal County Council at present is equivalent to that which obtained before the break-up of the County Dublin area into three boroughs in 1994. As other Members stated, private sector companies are offering attractive terms of employment which is leading to the most experienced executives leaving planning authorities throughout the country. The Minister and the Government will be obliged to consider this matter, particularly in terms of training and wage structures, because it is frustrating when a person who is dealing with a particular planning matter moves to a new job or is seconded to another post. I accept the Bill contains provisions in respect of appointing additional staff but there is a need to consider the overall issue in terms of wage structures and training.

I welcome the concept of area action plans. These will give members of the public a say in the final programme of works to be carried out in any area. I hope the days are gone when housing schemes were started without the proper infrastructure being put in place. These integrated action plans, which will form an integral part of development plans, are a positive development.

I also welcome the concept of strategic development zones. A large number of high-tech industries are being attracted to Ireland and many of the companies involved are situating their operations near Dublin Airport, which is in my constituency.

It is no good telling people they may get planning permission in two or three years because the product they are trying to develop may be out of date by then. It is vital that proper planning guidelines ensure that national or international investors who are creating jobs know that one application will lead to planning permission. This is a step in the right direction.

The changes contained in the Bill will assist in the implementation of the national development plan. A large amount of expenditure is involved in that plan and the changes in the Bill dealing with planning applications and An Bord Pleanála will help to speed up some of the important national projects outlined in the plan. I welcome the strengthening of laws and fines concerning unauthorised buildings and their retention.

The first three development plans for Dublin were over a ten year period and were not reviewed for up to ten years. This led to many problems with which we are still dealing. That is why it is important to implement a structured review of the plan. There should also be flexibility at management and political level to vary development plans to take account of changes in an area.

The changes announced by the Minister are the right way to proceed in dealing with the supply of houses, the most politically sensitive issue of the moment. I agree with his decision allowing county management teams and the private sector to provide the number of houses required. The next six to eight months will see the beginnings of major schemes which will include integrated social and affordable housing. The Government set out to achieve this objective and it will be successful.

In discussing a fundamental amendment to the 1963 planning Act, one is encouraged to look at the atmosphere in which that basic Act was passed. It was a time of incredible hostility to the concept of planning and was preceded by other restrictions in democratic accountability, such as the City and County Management Acts, 1940 and 1955. These Acts were passed against a background of alleged political corruption and impropriety on the part of public local representatives. Historical studies of the period have argued that they were required by the circumstances of the time.

It is interesting that the Minister, who has given much publicity to the case for reducing the number of Dáil Deputies and reform of the electoral system, has been singularly silent on the need for legislation regarding the management Acts, 1940 and 1955. It is as if the case made in the 1940s and 1950s still remains. It is instructive to consider the roles managers will have under this Bill concerning public representatives. For example, when a new plan is being prepared the hundreds of submissions received will not automatically go to elected representatives but will be presented to them in summary form by the manager. One can draw only one conclusion from this provision – there is no attempt by the Minister to face up to the fact that we need fundamental changes to the City and County Management Acts regarding the roles of managers. This is not a negative view but takes account of the new democratic impulse for participation in local government.

Since the passing of the 1955 Act there has been no culture of communication in local authorities. This problem is compounded by sad and serious staff shortages in planning departments. These departments, which are under-staffed, under-resourced and required to meet statutory time limits, will find themselves impelled towards thinking that those who want to ask questions and participate are fractious. They will be encouraged in this opinion by more than the odd manager.

I wish to recount some personal experiences of the atmosphere surrounding the preparation of city and county development plans. I participated in written and oral submissions regarding the last development plan for Galway city. Just under 500 submissions were made concerning the plan which received a two line reply acknowledging the submission but stating that no change to the plan was recommended on the basis of the submission. I am not commenting on the quality of my submission, the groups with which I was associated or any other submission but, as a public representative, I challenge the bona fides of those who claim this is a consultation process. The public, by way of a notice in local newspapers, are invited to be told what has been decided for them. Any consultation process in any planning authority in the civilised world involves people from the beginning and, ab initio, one knows what the choices are. The range of choices is narrowed down and hard decisions are made. Involvement at that level is the only definition of true consultation.

In the poisoned atmosphere of an absence of consultation, it is easy for those who make representations on particular issues to be incorrectly portrayed as fractious or difficult people or organisations. It is also easy to draw a line between elected members who ask difficult questions and those who, as it were, roll over for the co-optation techniques of those who have prepared the unrepresentative and non-consultative – in a genuine sense – plan. It is easy to say that the former are difficult councillors.

Let us call a spade a spade. We are discussing changes to planning legislation when the planning process has been seriously damaged. I will not upset the Chair by straying into matters which are before the courts or the tribunals. However, the damage done to the planning process is outrageous. This damage has not been caused by those who make a case for retaining a green area or whatever. It is interesting that such people were among those turned on when we discussed the housing crisis. This Bill is a planning and a housing Bill rolled into one. It was suggested that such people were delaying the availability of land or whatever. The people who have damaged politics and planning are not those interested in issues beyond themselves, such as green areas. Let us speak plainly because it will divide political parties into the next decade. The damage was caused by those who put the right to speculate above the right to a house.

This is an issue on which not everyone will agree. We spoke last night about the concept of universality in health care, that there is a basic level of health care to which everyone has access. One can refer to the right to a level of education to which everyone has access, or the universal right to a level of information to which every citizen has access and which one should not have to purchase. There is that which one has a right to view as a citizen on free-to-air television for example, as opposed to Rupert Murdoch's pay television. That concept of universality in health, education and information applies, above all else, to housing. It cannot be dodged any more. There are those who will suggest the market will solve the problem. A Government party has lined up with its old friends the builders and particularly the speculative part of the building industry. A major party in this House has a relationship which it is anxious now to vaporise, with the corrupt, speculative component of the building industry. That should be said openly by those of us who despise it, who are in public life, in politics and who refuse to be besmirched by it. There is a choice. Will it say the right to speculate is a lesser right or that it is not a right at all by comparison to the right to shelter? Is the right to shelter a universal right? Let us divide on that one. Let the public line up between all those who want to support a party such as this. Sadly, the public have given a huge vote to those who were being gurriers for themselves who they imagined might be gurriers sometime in the national interest in a residual way. We have reached the state of politics we are in now, precisely because of that. It needs to be stated openly and again and again. There is no running away from it.

When one examines the new reformed Fianna Fáil party with its injection of PD virtue, it offers us in the course of three budgets, a reduction in capital gains tax, first for residential building land and then for all development land. In other words, we will tell the speculative hucksters that we will try and entice from them what they are hoarding, not because there is a housing crisis that affects a citizenship right or basic right, but because the housing shortage is now beginning to affect the economy. Economic growth is challenged by the housing shortage. It did not matter that people with two incomes combined rising at half six or seven in the morning, going to work, having to make provision for child care and going home late at night was damaging to society. What mattered was that suddenly the economic growth rate might be affected by the housing shortage. The Government turns to the squad that has supported it and suggests that maybe it might lure out what it has hoarded by way of zonings and permissions. The squad then comes and says "That is not enough. When you have done all the rezoning, and I know now you want to build on the space of a postage stamp, we will want change in a densities". Suddenly people get an intellectual charge to the mind: "Ireland has a different density regime to other European countries". They forget to compare honestly, the fact that in one city and town after another across Europe where densities have been changed, people have access to public parks, and to huge public provision which is absent in Dublin, Galway and in many other towns. It is a nonsense. However, what one does get is the sort of carry-on which was accommodated for years where we have tens of thousands of glorified flats, called apartments now, with balconies stuck outside them to make up the alleged open space associated with building and development. There is not enough time to examine the details but I will on Committee Stage.

Let us be clear that the public will have to make choices. To those who want to challenge the 20% that might come in within three years, I say "challenge it", but let us go back then to a point before the Kenny report and if there is a constitutional challenge, let us have a referendum on this, that will establish as a basic principal, the right of local authorities to establish land banks as a primordial interest in relation to any other rights that might be there in relation to property. Mr. Justice Kenny went blue in the face giving hints that such a case would be welcome if stated before him. That would be more welcome than this notion that we can change densities, that we can make such zonings as will facilitate speculation and so on. I am not just talking about facts. I can be as factual as people want. Since 1 January 1998, when inflation was less than 4%, the take, on profit on development land increased by between 30% and 35%. In the old days I sat in Government with the Minister. Then in another Government, I remember answering questions on whether the two people I brought to the Department with me, a programme manager and an adviser – I had no PR person – had mobile phones and who was paying the cost of their calls. These converts used to ask these questions, saying this was an example of disgraceful abuse of the public purse by the Labour Party. Giving one's adviser a mobile phone was somehow awful. Last year, they spent £571,238 on spreading the good news from the Custom House. Where are all those who were up on their hind legs on that matter now? That is a great number of telephone calls. Where are all those who worked as permanent civil servants who were worried about the dislodgement of opportunities here, there and everywhere when the money is being forked out right, left and centre for propaganda rather than policy?

I will make a few other points because there will be an opportunity of going through the different sections of this legislation on Committee Stage. I raise the question of whether we want a genuine planning regime. This has been raised by other Deputies. I will not delay on it. One could probably do it best only in a general spatial plan, that is accepting the responsibility of balances between urban and rural, between regional cities such as Cork and Galway and towns and villages. The biggest pressure in Europe is on village structures for example because towns in different regions are sucking village life into them. There is a collapsing not just of the agricultural industry or of farming but also of a rural way of life. We need to accept planning to the point at which one begins with a spatial vision and let us debate it, differ on it and have consultation on it. Let us differ politically.

I accept – I am a democrat – that the majority of people in this country have never supported such a radical agenda as would do many of the things in relation to basic rights that I mention. They have had in effect, a relationship with the slieveens and the gombeens who they believe are rising. As R.H. Tawney put it, "why do tadpoles put up with their existence in the hope that maybe one of their number will leap to earth one day and become a frog?". Maybe that is the reason they supported such corruption so consistently with such dire consequences. If there was a genuine spatial background dimension to this, one would have then some guidelines on the city and county development consultation process.

The technical resources that have become monopolised within the city and county management Act through the 1955 and the 1940 Acts should be available to the public. The public should have access to such technical expertise so that they are not at a net disadvantage. It is a disgraceful lie to suggest that consultation is suf ficient when that which has been decided for you with all the technical resources loaded into one option is just shown to you. This is like saying, "Look what I have for you". Then they turn around and say, "Mr. Mayor" or "Mr. Chairman", "This is your plan, take ownership of my plan". Then one lives with that for four or six years.

What do those, as Trollope would put it, hoping for preferment want? They say they have the most wonderful manager in the world and if there is life in outer space, he is also better than any of them. There will then be a round of applause. If someone asks a difficult question, he or she is "the crank from the council". That is not good enough and is not what the public want. The public will not put up with it for much longer. They want and are entitled to genuine consultation. They want to be involved at the generation of options and to have access to whatever technical information is necessary.

Also absent from the Minister's long speech – one can produce a great deal for £500,000 – is integration. Many of the new development plans for different cities and counties were prepared without any public consultation and without taking waste management strategies or transportation studies into account. There was consultation – those with a monopoly of technical expertise knew about the terms of reference and preliminary detail from the consultants involved, but elected members did not. This is crazy.

Acting Chairman

I regret to remind the Deputy he has two minutes remaining.

I will list the themes I hope to develop on Committee Stage so a sense of anticipation will be created among those who will want to support me. There is an absence of integration and I gave the examples of transportation and waste management. There is also the disgraceful suggestion that those who express an opinion are holding up good planning. The Labour Party is totally opposed to the proposed fee every time one makes an observation on a planning application. The idea that the consideration of An Bord Pleanála should be limited to those filtered out by the £20 fee is a curious contradiction of every nod in the direction of democracy. There are vexatious objections. The Minister of State in my constituency drew attention to this matter, about which he is concerned. I did not hear him commenting on a recent allegation reported in a local newspaper that people were offered inducements to withdraw their objections. Is there a penalty for paying of an objector in the Bill?

It would be wonderful if the speculative builders ran it all and solved the housing crisis. It is an awful pity that democracy is getting in the way, that elected representatives will have as much power as managers and that consultation will have to be earlier rather than later. That is the current atmosphere.

Another flaw in this Bill is the idea of exempted development which will create another cosy situation. We will oppose that on the basis that instead of extending the requirements of planning, which is a democratic requirement on every citizen, we are now proposing to invite people into partnership with local authorities to dodge responsibility and accountability in planning. I hope we will able to return to these points and others I have not covered on Committee Stage.

I would love to live in Deputy Higgins' ideal world. Unfortunately, my views are far more conventional. This is, by any standards, major legislation. The Bill proposes a fundamental reform of planning law and consolidates existing law. The Bill is timely if not a little overdue, having regard to the rapid economic growth in recent years. A central aim of the Bill is to increase the supply of social and affordable housing. Anyone involved in public life realises that this must be our major priority. It is impossible to discuss every measure in the Bill on Second Stage in the short time available to Members. It is obvious that the real work will be done on Committee Stage.

The overall context of planning is, for the first time, clearly spelled out in this Bill. At the highest level is the national development plan and the associated national spatial strategy. I welcome the commitment given in the national development plan to balanced regional development through the promotion of urban growth centres, among other measures. This policy will considerably ease the pressures emerging in a rapidly expanding greater Dublin area. At the next level are the regional planning guidelines, drawn up by regional authorities, which will cover issues such as population trends, housing strategy, location of development, transport, waste, protection of the environment, etc.

Central to the Bill is the traditional local authority development plan. I agree with Deputy Higgins that we need greater public participation in this aspect of planning. I welcome the provisions for co-ordination of development plans for adjoining areas, particularly regarding the four local authorities in Dublin. At present, advertisements regarding development plans are placed in the national press, possibly in two newspapers. Often the vast majority of people do not read the newspaper or do not see the notice. It is not enough to put an official notice in newspapers. More public participation is needed in the drawing up of development plans. More communication regarding the issues involved is also needed. Modern communications techniques should be used to ensure involvement. I estimate that when a local authority prepares a development plan, more than 90% of the people of the area involved are oblivious to it. More work needs to be done in this regard. I welcome the provisions in the Bill for consultation and public participation in the drawing up of development plans.

I welcome the provision for co-ordination of development plans for adjoining areas, particularly as regards the four local authorities in Dublin. Often when one local authority, for example, Dublin Corporation, is drawing up plans, it is totally oblivious to what is happening across the road or the river in, for example, Fingal County Council. The provision for co-ordination needs to be developed when the Bill is enacted.

A core principle of the Bill is sustainable development. I am delighted this is being put to the forefront, as it is essential in this day and age. I also welcome that statutory recognition is being given to local area plans. There is a desire to develop such plans in many communities in the Dublin area who are willing to become involved. For example, the traditional villages of Dublin such as Raheny, Clontarf, Santry and Drumcondra, have drawn up local area plans and are crying out for them to be implemented. They have received little or no co-operation from their local authorities. I welcome the commitment of Dublin Corporation to develop this concept this year. I hope the Bill will spur them into action. The communities involved have not been encouraged by local authorities and I hope this will change.

I will now deal with planning permissions. Third parties will have a statutory right to make a submission when this Bill becomes law. It is extraordinary that this right was never previously provided for in legislation. A further provision refers to the payment of a fee when a submission is made. There will be much debate of that measure but it is my belief that it is a good idea. If people feel strongly enough about something they must be prepared to pay for it. We live in an age of charges and fees; we also live in an age of spurious objections.

The Bill gives planning authorities the right to regulate the naming and numbering in housing estates. There are duplications of names and house numbers in urban estates. Local authorities should play a more active role to rectify this situation.

The restriction of rights of appeal to those who made a submission to the local authority is controversial. It will, however, streamline the planning process and prevent spurious objections which are often put forward for commercial reasons whereby one commercial operator automatically objects to the development plans of another in the same area.

The Bill deals with enforcement. Local authority enforcement is pathetic. There is widespread abuse of planning law and local authorities seem powerless to do anything about it. This Bill puts more of an onus on local authorities to follow up complaints about breaches of the planning controls. Planning inspectors are reluctant to investigate breaches of planning permission. They adopt a live and let live approach which cannot be tolerated. The planning inspectors should be given more power. Often a row of trees will be destroyed before the planning inspector has even been notified of the situation. More staff are needed to deal with the situation because much more development is now under way than was the case in the past. There are more possibilities that planning controls are being breached as a result.

The planning authorities will be able to take enforcement action against a developer for not finishing an estate within seven years. All public representatives know that there is a serious problem with builders and developers refusing to finish estates, causing intolerable problems for residents. Residents' associations find it impossible to get satisfaction from the local authority or from the developer.

I have long called for licensing for outdoor events. In 1977 Bob Geldof and The Boomtown Rats could not find a suitable venue in their home town for an outdoor concert due to the complex planning system. In 1998 a planned concert by The Rolling Stones in the RDS was cancelled because of uncertainty over planning permission. Until now concerts at Slane Castle, Croke Park, the RDS, Lansdowne Road and other venues were at risk given the complexity of the planning laws. That is why section 208 of this Bill, exempting outdoor events from the planning process, is most welcome. Promoters will now be required only to obtain a licence from the local authority to hold such an event. Such a system will adequately accommodate the legitimate concerns of local residents and other interested parties. This provision is long overdue and puts an end to the crazy situation which existed until now. At last top international artists and bands can plan to perform in this State free from the dangers posed by the complexity of the planning laws.

In his speech on Second Stage, the Minister said:

The provision of adequate housing for all members of society has been a major issue of public policy for Governments of all shades since this State gained its independence. It has further been a traditional aim of Government to facilitate people in buying their own homes where this is possible. This has had a stabilising effect on Irish society and home ownership is an aspiration which the vast majority of people hold dear. This Government will continue to support that aspiration but the State also has a responsibility to assist those who cannot afford to house themselves in the market. This has been done through the provision of local authority or other social housing. Part V of this Bill is designed to underpin these two planks of our housing policy.

I could not agree more. Part V of the Bill provides for the preparation of housing strategies by planning authorities as part of their development plans to ensure adequate land is zoned for housing and that sufficient social and affordable housing is provided. Up to 20% of land to be used for residential purposes must be provided for social or affordable housing. This is a radical proposal. It is also vital. There is a serious housing problem in Dublin. Little land is available for the construction of new social housing and higher house prices make it difficult for local authorities to purchase existing houses. The Dublin city manager believes that the 20% proposal is the only answer to the problem if we are to provide public housing in the traditional manner.

I welcome the plans for an integrated strategy for the four local authorities in the Dublin area. That is the only way people who live within the Dublin Corporation area will have any hope of getting local authority housing. Such an integrated strategy is essential.

The constitutionality of the provision has been mentioned. Bunreacht na hÉireann is an evolving document which changes as society changes. People have a right to food on the table, clothes on their backs and a roof over their head. If the common good does not mean the right to housing, it means nothing. Any decision by the Supreme Court will dwell on the concept of the common good and should this Bill end up before the Supreme Court, it will be found constitutional. Such a decision will be a landmark judgment.

I welcome the concept of social integration but I would not under-estimate opposition to such a concept. The experience of my local authority is not good in attempting to buy private houses in private housing estates to give to people on local authority waiting lists. Such purchases are fiercely resisted by local residents and local residents' associations. We should not be oblivious to this issue. This is why we must commit ourselves in this Bill to the concept of social integration. We are giving a lead in that regard. Many difficulties are being experienced by people who live in the Dublin Corporation area in their attempts to obtain housing. There is a limit, for example, of £100,000 on the shared ownership scheme. One cannot purchase a house nowadays in the city for £100,000. There is a provision for an applicant to provide £30,000 extra from his or her resources. Unfortunately, this does not apply to very many people, therefore, shared ownership is no longer an option.

There has been no progress in the city in relation to the scheme of affordable housing. Land has been looked at in Finglas and possibly in Airfield, Malahide Road, but we are talking about two or three years down the road. Therefore, at present the scheme of affordable housing is useless in the Dublin Corporation area. The Department must be conscious of this fact. What are people living in the Dublin city area to do about obtaining housing, given that all the schemes announced do not apply to them? Local authority housing cannot be built because land is not available. These issues must be highlighted and dealt with.

The publication of the strategic planning guidelines report and the residential density guidelines report have a profound effect on planning in suburban Dublin. The very character of neighbourhoods is being changed rapidly. Massive planning applications are being received for town houses, apartments, duplex units and so on. Some of these are four storey blocks. These applications are totally out of character with the existing urban environment and this is causing concern in neighbourhoods. Yet high density must be the answer if we are to prevent an urban sprawl and consequent traffic and other problems. However, we cannot have high density at any cost. The concept of sustainable development in this regard is extremely important. We also need an efficient and comprehensive public transport system. The challenge is to protect our existing amenities and develop quality new living environments. We need good design and to establish the visual relationship between buildings and public space. Such frameworks help to establish the character and quality of streets and urban spaces in a local context. There is a major challenge in this area.

There is a view that Dublin is developing ad hoc, that builders and the market are setting the agenda. We must plan now because there could be a population of 1.93 million in the greater Dublin area by 2011. The national development plan calls for balanced regional development, which I welcome. Residential density guidelines mean development of the existing urban area and should help stop the relentless sprawl of the capital. Urban renewal schemes have helped in the past and the proposed development of the Dublin Docklands will also help. I support the view for a metro system linking Connolly and Heuston stations. We must get the planning of Dublin right, otherwise it will be ad hoc and out of control, and God knows what we will end up with in a few years' time.

I welcome the Bill in general, both in consolidating the existing planning Acts and in attempting to streamline the whole planning process. One of the major criticisms of the planning process, which has often been identified as a bottleneck in progressing many projects, has been the tortuous, uncertain and very lengthy journey through the planning system. These delays applied equally to public and private sector projects and have contributed significantly to the infrastructural deficit and undeveloped nature of the public-private partnerships, a process which is still in its infancy. I am aware some projects are now progressing. The efficacy of the Bill will be critical in ensuring the process can prosper in the future and that we can look to the private sector to provide, in partnership with the State, many infrastructural projects. In the past, the private sector shied away from involvement in public sector projects simply because the whole planning process seemed to be so open-ended and uncertain. These inordinate delays in bringing projects from conception to construction resulted in many projects being lost or aban doned. By the time planning applications for others are approved, the projects are no longer relevant. Conditions have changed so much in the meantime, they are either the wrong size or are inappropriate to market conditions and demand.

For these reasons, I wish to speak about the efficacy of the Bill in bringing an end to unsustainable delays, in bringing certainty to public and private sector proposals and bringing the planning process timeframe into line with the rest of Europe, with which we are in competition. I hope to be in a position to speak in detail about other aspects of the Bill on Committee Stage. The urgency with which the Bill is being treated on all sides of the House, and indeed by the industry outside, is because of the common acceptance that there is a housing crisis. This is also critical to the implementation of the national development plan which sets very ambitious targets for the remedying of the infrastructural deficit. Much of the discussion and media attention has centred around the housing issue and the measures in this Bill. However, meeting housing needs on their own is just meeting some of our needs. If the aspiration to sustainable development has any meaning, surely it must mean integrated and the simultaneous provision of other aspects of infrastructure such as transport, water, waste treatment, recreation and other facilities. All these services, not just housing, are needed by populations. The Bill misses a valuable opportunity to remove barriers which have prevented all these things happening together in the past.

Perhaps too much is expected of the Bill. I fear that when it is passed, the Government will heave a collective sigh of relief that all our planning problems are over and the implementation of the national development plan will flow smoothly on time, on budget and so on. I do not think this will be the case. Some of the barriers to bringing projects to a conclusion, or even commencement, do not fall within the scope of the Bill. Some issues that fall within the scope of the Bill have not been addressed or where they are addressed, at least in theory, there is very little evidence that the resources are available to allow many of these worthy measures to be implemented. In relation to issues that fall outside the scope of the Bill, the EPA gives me cause for concern. As far as I am aware, there is no time limit on decisions by the EPA. It is responsible for the licensing of much of our environmental infrastructure. This should have been included in this Bill or another Bill. I recently read the EPA's 1998 report. The local authority in my area applied to the EPA for a waste management licence 18 months ago. After a year, it was asked for additional information, which it supplied. Two months later it was told the additional information was so significant that it had to go back to square one and start the public consultation process again. A total of 18 months was wasted while that was ongoing.

I do not know if this is typical of other cases. I accept that such an application is complex and involves technical issues. I am sure the delay is not due to any badness on the part of the EPA. However, it indicates a lack of resources within the EPA. It has an important role to play and the issue of waste management is contentious enough without adding the uncertainty of these delays. This area needs to be considered as part of the implementation of the overall plan. There are difficulties with regard to Kerbside but the whole Dublin region is lurching from crisis to crisis in terms of waste management. In many cases the disposal of waste is being done to what would be regarded internationally as unacceptable standards and at an escalating cost. There is a need to move speedily to the next generation of waste management.

Ministers are not entirely free from guilt in relation to holding up projects. The Luas project is a case in point. It had been through most of the tortuous planning procedure from conception to public consultation, etc, but it was turned on its head at the whim of a Minister. Years of consultation, deliberation and planning were thrown out the window. The project is as much in the air as it was 18 months ago when the proposal to put part of it underground was announced. The Dublin Port tunnel is another case involving a lengthy and tortuous planning process. The matter was on the Minister's desk from May to December before a decision was made. It was a critical decision for Dublin and progress needed to be made quickly. It was an inordinately long time for a Minister to take to make a decision but I realise that, in future, this type of decision will be made by An Bord Pleanála. However, unless it has the resources to make such decisions, I am not sure they will be made any more quickly.

As the Fine Gael spokesperson on transport, one of my concerns is the extent to which the Bill can facilitate and speed up the implementation of the national road network, particularly the aspect of the network included in the national development plan for the next seven years. There are two glaring omissions in the Bill in that regard. The first is the failure to tie down as tightly as possible the conditions under which an applicant can seek a judicial review of a CPO, EIS or motorway scheme which has been through the process. There is a provision that a review would only be granted where the court is satisfied the applicant has a substantial interest in the matter.

I do not know how 'substantial' can be defined, but an attempt should be made to do it. If that is not done, the courts will interpret it for us. The word 'substantial' could mean anything; it could be as long or wide as a piece of string. It adds uncertainty to projects because no one can predict how the courts will interpret what is a substantial interest. I am sure the Minister is aware that it was generously interpreted recently and resulted in an important road project being delayed.

The second and related area where the Bill is disappointing is that it has not sought to limit the discretion of the High Court to entertain applications for a judicial review which are made out- side the two month limit. Under recent legislation, the courts were allowed some discretion outside that period. This discretion was used recently and delayed another road project. I welcome that the courts are now regarding these matters as important and are giving them early and expeditious attention. I hope this will continue, but the legislation should tie it down. We cannot depend only on the goodwill of the courts. The Minister has received representations on these matters from others, including the National Roads Authority, and I ask him to tighten up those loopholes.

No one would deny that there is ample opportunity in the process, particularly regarding motorway orders, etc, for the public to have an input. This is correct. It is our job to protect the interests of individuals and groups when major public projects are being proposed. However, there must be finality. There must come a point when the common good takes over, a halt is called to the planning process and a project proceeds. In many cases, the balance is wrong. If we do not get it right, now, it will offset many of the potential gains of the Bill in terms of speeding up and streamlining the approval process.

My greatest concern is about the availability of resources to implement the Bill throughout the planning system. I welcome the time reductions in the various stages of the process involved in planning permissions, approvals and orders, etc. However, without resources, reducing the decision time from two months to eight weeks or from a month to four weeks or putting time restrictions on the making or varying of development plans will not achieve quicker decisions. They will achieve bad decisions and, in some cases, refusals which will clog up the system further because they will result in appeals to the board or fresh applications to local authorities.

Local authorities must be given resources, primarily in terms of planners – other speakers referred to this aspect – but also in relation to the back up services they need. All applications go to every department in the council and the planners need back up in terms of engineering, technical and administrative staff. In all departments which have a planning input, matters will not improve. I am not sure the Minister is aware of how busy planners are at present and the difficulty, particularly in Dublin, involved in getting planners or other professional staff.

There is a haemorrhage of young professionals from Dublin. They are moving to other local authorities where they can get cheaper housing and if they are not leaving Dublin, they are going to the private sector. What movement there is in Dublin is only poaching from one local authority to another or to An Bord Pleanála. There is little increase in the overall resources available to the public sector. It may appear incredible but in my local authority, no planner has answered a telephone call for three months. They have switched their telephones to voicemail not because they do not want to talk to the public, but because they have no choice if they are to meet their statutory deadlines in terms of planning permission applications. A shortening of the time involved will not be achieved with a magic wand. Resources must be put in place.

The problem is not only due to the huge increase in the number of planning applications. The applications have also increased in size and complexity. Today, I became aware of a planning application before my local authority, which is not the biggest application before it, that contains 1,700 drawings. The handling of that application, apart from even reading or assessing the drawings, will absorb enormous resources.

Planners and engineers also have to deal with the new responsibilities involved in all the regulations, legislation and guidelines thrown at them by the Department. The time available for making development plans has been shortened and they must also prepare action area plans. Local authorities also have responsibility in terms of the increasing output of houses, both public and private, and all that goes with that and other projects in terms of public participation and consultation. This area needs to be resourced. Deputy Higgins said that public consultation is a farce, and he is correct. It involves a notice in a newspaper and a plan stuck up on the wall of the local authority. It does not become consultation until there is a crisis involving a bulldozer on one side and a resident with an injunction on the other. This is not what is meant by consultation. Consultation should take place early on. It needs time and the involvement of technical expertise and information for people. It needs deliberation and planning resources, but that is not available.

Local authorities cannot do all that is being asked of them within tighter time constraints. It is not possible and the Bill mentions pre-planning consultation to ensure easier passage through the planning system. It is a laudable aspiration but totally fanciful in the current climate in Dublin. Planners do not have time to have chats with people, particularly if they are to meet statutory deadlines, which are to be shortened, in relation to the submission of important planning applications. In so far as members of the public have an opportunity now of getting in touch with planners and having face to face meetings about significant planning applications of interest to their area, they will not have any such opportunity in the future. That under-resourcing goes right through the system. Deputy Haughey spoke about enforcement, which does not exist due to a lack of resources. Local authorities are reluctant to pursue it because they will end up having to commit the time and resources of professional staff to bring small cases to court. However, those small cases are getting bigger every day.

The provision which gives the rights of a statutory undertaker to the new cable companies and makes them, effectively, exempted development should not be included in the Bill. That was fine in the past when there was a limited number of public statutory undertakers, little construction activity and no traffic. As well as the traditional statutory undertakers, all of which are providing additional capacity, there is a plethora of telecommunications companies digging up heavily congested streets. I accept they may provide important infrastructure, but it is too easy and cheap for them to dig up the streets. They need road opening licences, but that is only a formality. In theory, while they are meant to co-ordinate their activities, there is war on the streets between cable companies. They are in competition with one another and are vying with each other for road space. Co-operation about road openings is a concept they do not understand. Companies with spare duct capacity employ security to prevent others coming in and stealing their capacity. As a result of all the road openings by statutory undertakers, there is chaos on our streets and local authorities are unable to enforce road reinstatements, tidy up operations etc. We are left with construction material and rubble on the street and poorly reinstated footpaths. In most cases, certainly in Dublin, the local authority does not have a clue who is doing the work, it has no way of following it up and does not have the resources. Some control is needed in that area before it gets out of hand.

To be successful, many of the proposed changes in the Bill depend on the ability of An Bord Pleanála to deliver decisions on time. That is critical, but without sufficient staff it is not possible. I am concerned that its source of staff will continue to come from the other local authorities in Dublin. If that is the case it is a self-defeating exercise and will produce no increase in output.

I welcome the provision which moves responsibility for confirmation of motorway orders and other projects from the Department to An Bord Pleanála and the imposition of a time limit on these decisions. However, that addresses only one stage of project approval. There are 17 stages of approval which local authorities have to go through to bring a road project from early design to completion. That was all very well when we had no money to spend and we needed to keep projects ticking over, but the position is different now. We need a root and branch assessment of how we should deal with matters if we are to achieve the aspirations of the plan.

In regard to the road construction programme, under the national development plan, in the next seven years we have to increase our output by one and half times what we achieved on average in each of the seven years of the last plan. That is the equivalent of building the south eastern motorway, the port tunnel, the Kinnegad, Waterford and Limerick by-passes every year. I do not think we are geared up to that. It is worth noting that we failed to meet the targets of the last national development plan when there were no bottlenecks in the economy and little constraints and spare capacity everywhere. All that is changed and there are shortages everywhere.

My local authority has £66 million to spend on road projects. If we do not gear up to meet the requirements of the Bill and the national development plan in terms of resources – technical, engineering and planning – we will not achieve our aspirations.

I welcome the opportunity to debate this extensive Bill which is overdue. Planning and planning requirements affect every member of the State. People are not always conscious of this and may think individual applications may not affect them. However, numerous planning applications in any one location affect all of us.

I welcome the Minister's approach in the Seanad debate and his willingness to take on board amendments, some of which are very practical. One which comes to mind is the decision to extend the time allowed for further information submitted from four weeks to the original eight weeks. He has shown a willingness to be flexible and I have no doubt he will do likewise here. At the same time I am pleased he did not buckle under the pressure from the developers construction federation and individuals – and the pressure on public representatives to make a case against his plans – for the inclusion of facilities for social integration and the provision of social and affordable housing. There may be a need to amend some parts of that – I am happy with the approach – but the general concept is critical to us all and badly needed. I am pleased he has maintained his stance and that he originally took the initiative on it.

The team in the Department led by the Minister is doing an excellent job. The Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, deals with housing and my colleague the Minister of State, Deputy Wallace, deals with the environment. The friction in previous Administrations is not evident in this one, and it is working well. Following the enactment of this Bill its job should be easier given than much of the representations made to it and the lobbying is about issues relating to planning.

An individual planning application or development may not affect people, but a multiplicity of development can destroy an area and affect people many miles away. Consideration has to be given to the overall effect of these developments. I represent the villages of Douglas and Grange in Cork. They have become integrated and developers have joined those villages to the extent that they are called Douglas-Grange. Every square yard of green space is used up and the developers are now moving to join them with the village of Rochestown. This is a replica of what happened in Dublin many years ago where village after village was linked together, resulting in the huge sprawl about which people complain. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss these matters and to take cognisance of what is happening.

Developers seem to take the best areas presented and run with them. In that context, I am concerned that the Bacon report may be used as a developers' charter. In the Rochestown area, a reasonably wealthy area of high quality housing, the housing density is four to five. There is now an application to demolish an existing building and start a new development. That new development would be on an area of approximately 1.8 acres and the application is for 57 units, which will give approximately 31 units to the acre. That is taking place at the core of an existing development and the only justification being put forward for it is the Bacon report. We ought to be careful in implementing these recommendations. We should look at these matters in their totality having regard to how they affect people. I do not wish to oppose any specific planning application here, but I use that as an example.

In the Grange area of Douglas, to which I referred, no green field was left by either the local authority or the developers. That was the best example of bad planning. If it was not for the Douglas GAA club, which undertook an excellent project, and other sporting and voluntary bodies in the area, where there are now tens of thousands of people, there would be social chaos. It is a frightening thought.

Recreational facilities are just one environmental aspect of the matter. Another environmental aspect is the sheer congestion on all the approach roads on that side of Cork city as a result of the generation of extra traffic. That development was permitted, with no attempt to provide a proper road infrastructure. I do not want to see that type of approach in the future. There is need for local authorities to co-ordinate their efforts with those of neighbouring authorities in a joint approach to this matter. What happened in the past was irresponsible and was not helpful, but we have had warnings. I hope that as a result of the Bill we will be able to ensure that practice does not continue. I mentioned my own patch obviously, but I am just using that as an example of what has been happening in other areas.

The Bill is timely because people are now better off. I believe we will make the correct decisions in the future. If we had made such decisions in times of greater poverty when there was high unemployment, we might have been willing to compromise to a greater extent and not made wrong decisions in terms of providing jobs etc. I am glad we are making these decisions in the climate which has been created over the past couple of years. This Bill will be of assistance to us in making the right decisions for future generations.

There is need for co-ordination of city and county development plans. We hope the public will become more involved in these matters because it owns the local plans, which is laudable. I am concerned about whether the regional body or greater joint authority will be able to overrule the local plan. Will they be able to impose decisions on local people which would not have been included in the local development plan? We should tease out that matter further. I am a member of the South-west Regional Authority and I welcome the attempts to co-ordinate regional planning development. However, I am concerned about who will win through in the case of conflict – for example, in Cork Corporation there is conflict between the local plan and the regional authority's recommendation. I ask the Minister to clarify that matter.

The local authority tenant purchase scheme may not relate directly to the Bill but it has been mentioned already. The new found affluence has created a situation where in the same local authority estate people who bought a house 12 months ago will have paid £12,000, £14,000 or £16,000 less than their neighbours who will avail of the scheme this year. If a person bought a house a year or two years earlier than his neighbour, the difference can be as much as £25,000. I am told that situation has been created by outside forces, but the Government and local authorities are committed to providing housing for people who need them. We should ensure that people are able to purchase their own homes. Home ownership is a much lauded effort in Ireland but it is sneered at in other European countries where people often believe that the housing stock should be rotated among those who need it. Home ownership brings many benefits for the State and local communities. I ask the Minister to look at that issue because I am concerned about it.

The Bill is greatly concerned with the need to provide houses. There is a greater demand for quality housing and a refusal to accept what was accepted in the past, that is, five or six families sharing a house, with people squashed into rooms. We are aiming for high standards and we must do everything possible to remove any impediments to it. I accept there are problems with house prices.

We should look at all the schemes of the Department of the Environment and Local Government, many of which are laudable. The "in lieu" scheme, as it is described, where the local authority builds an extension to a house to address overcrowding, to provide for the accommodation of a lone parent with a child or for other social reasons, is a good scheme which is not used often enough by local authorities. Many local authorities have shied away from it, perhaps because of difficulties in employing an architect or a builder. The Minister has promoted it widely and I would like to see it used more.

Mention was made of the shared ownership scheme and in the context of the development plan it will apply best to new housing schemes provided by the local authority or in partnership with private developers. I ask that the existing scheme would be further examined to see if the six or seven impediments which the applicant faces can be removed. Initiatives have been taken in this regard by local authorities – Fingal County Council is one of the foremost authorities in that regard. The Minister has asked all local authorities to look at implementation of the scheme with a view to resolving the difficulties, but they still exist. Some of them include market forces, legal requirements, levels of financing, the need for an inspector's visit and technical matters. Sometimes by the time those matters are taken into consideration, the house is sold to somebody with cash in hand. That matter should be considered because this is a marvellous innovative scheme.

One point I should have made about the tenant purchase scheme – it is one of the reasons I raised it – is that we should not interfere directly in the pricing of houses because local authorities are repurchasing houses which they owned previously. If the tenancy allowance, which is currently 3% for a maximum of ten years, were increased to 4 or 5%, it might deal with the problem. That issue could be examined.

Those of us who are members of local authorities have encountered many other areas of the planning process over the years. I am glad the Minister is dealing with rogue developers, because anybody who refuses to finish an estate can be called a rogue. They take purchasers' money, yet they refuse to complete the contract. Previously, they could brazenly obtain planning permission from the same local authority for a new development, even next door to the previous unfinished one. The public could not understand it. I have attended meetings in the last 20 years where people asked how such people could obtain permission for a further development. Up to now I have always had to tell them that, because of the legal situation, developers are entitled to apply and cannot be refused because of their previous track records. The Minister has dealt with this and such people can now be refused permission on the basis of new provisions in the Bill. We may have to go to court to achieve that, but I do not mind doing so if it stops these people.

The role of public representatives in planning matters was mentioned earlier by my colleague, Deputy Fleming. I would like his suggestion to be followed up. If I, as a public representative, am asked to make representations to An Bord Pleanála on a planning matter, without introducing new material, I should be entitled to do so without paying a fee. Public representatives have a built-in right to make representations at all levels, and to charge for making such representations is a contradiction of the democratic powers bestowed on them.

The next item on the agenda for public representatives is that of lobbying the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and the Minister of State, Deputy Dan Wallace, to get money for Cork Corporation or Cork County Council to resurface roads that are in poor condition. When roads are resurfaced, however, they are often dug up within a year by a service provider. We have not managed to change that because such providers have legal permission to open up roads. It is scandalous, crazy and a waste of public funds.

Deputy Dempsey is the first Minister in my 25 years in local government to have provided much needed funding for non-national estate roads in urban areas, which is very welcome. Prior to this, I met Ministers of all parties, as a member of various deputations, but they refused to provide such funding. We could provide ten times the current funding and we would still not achieve properly surfaced streets and roads if we do not deal with the service providers.

The street surfaces of Cork city are in a scandalous condition. Some 90% of the damage occurs where reinstatements have taken place and where sections of thoroughfares have collapsed after being tampered with. It is a reflection on us as public representatives, and particularly Members of the Dáil, that we have failed to deal with the problem. While I welcome the finance provided by the Minister, throwing money at the problem will not solve it. It is a waste of taxpayers' money to allow recently resurfaced roads to be dug up indiscriminately by various service providers. We must put manners on these people and co-ordinate their efforts in the same way as we are co-ordinating the planning requirements for the development plans of local authorities. Until we do so, we will fail the public.

I wish to discuss points arising from some of the amendments proposed in the Seanad. Section 79 deals with affordable housing. It provides for housing strategies to be prepared by planning authorities for inclusion as part of the development plan so that planning authorities can ensure sufficient social and affordable housing is provided in their areas as part of the overall supply of housing. I do not agree with Deputy Haughey's assertion that the scheme is useless. That contradicts what has happened in Galway Borough Council. In advance of any provisions in this Bill, we have already completed 32 affordable houses – 20 at Rahoon and 12 at Ballybane. The occupants were in the new houses for the new millennium. The buildings are semi-detached and provided with front and back gardens at a cost of £75,000. We were the first local authority in the country to achieve this, and a further 33 affordable houses are under construction. Some 55 units are going through the planning stages and at next Monday's corporation meeting six more will come up for approval.

Section 79 also deals with mortgage repayments. The definition of "eligible persons" is being amended to persons whose mortgage repayments would exceed 35% of their net income. In the case of two income households, one half of the second income would be taken into account for the purpose of determining eligibility. Unfortunately, one of the side effects of the proposal that 20% of land to be transferred from the developer to the local authority may be that the cost of houses on the remaining 80% of the site will rise, thus ensuring the developer makes a profit. With the 35% income clause, a sizeable proportion of house-seekers could fall between two stools; being unable to afford a house in the 80% sector, and being ineligible for one in the 20% affordable housing sector.

Section 81 deals with rezoning and was strengthened to make clear that planning authorities are obliged to ensure sufficient land is zoned for residential development to accommodate the housing needs of an area over the planned period. I was involved in two recent development plans while I was a member of the county council and the borough council. Up to the last local elections I dealt with the county plan, and more recently I dealt with the city development plan which was adopted in December 1998 after 18 months of serious deliberation. The greatest need for houses in the region is in Galway city. We zoned large tracts of land to meet the requirements in the next five years, which generally turns out of be six or seven years in the life of a development plan. That may not happen in future but it has always happened in the past. Large areas of land were zoned to encourage that type of land, in this and other areas, to be put on the open market. The Government responded with a plan to reduce capital gains tax from 40% to 20% on zoned land. Everything was being done to encourage people to put this land on to the market. The Department of the Environment and Local Government then sanctioned sewerage service schemes for this land which was put on the market and sold subject to planning, in most cases. We discovered, however, at the end of that process that it is not possible to grant planning permission, despite the land being zoned and serviced, because a design has not yet been done for the roads in the area. There is a great deal of pressure on engineering road design staff in councils who deal with bypasses, distributor roads, relief roads, ring roads and so on. There is insufficient staff to deal with road design for zoned lands which should be ripe for development but are being held up until this work is done. I appeal to the Minister to provide the local authorities with the necessary staff to do this work. I will deal later with the pressure on planning offices and the staff needed to deal with local authority planning problems.

The planning authority should be automatically required to maintain land transferred in an acceptable condition. We have tabled an amendment to section 82, which should be generally welcomed. Instead of transferring the land to be reserved for social and affordable housing to the local authority, with the authority contracting for the erection of the houses afterwards, there is now an express provision that enables the authority and the developer to enter into an agreement resulting in the developer building the social or affordable houses at an agreed cost and transferring them to the local authority on completion. That is a move in the right direction. If a developer with 100 acres of land developed 80 acres and transferred 20 acres to the local auth ority, not knowing when that land might be developed or what type of housing might be built, his ability to sell his own houses and to develop them according to an overall plan would be greatly restricted. This amendment, which was proposed in the Seanad, will ensure developers and local authorities can co-operate to complete housing estates. Many Members have complained about the non-completion of housing estates. This will ensure estates will be completed in their entirety, which is very welcome. In Galway borough council there has been such co-operation between developers and the local authority in the past few years.

Section 84 deals with clawbacks. In the Seanad, the 10% clawback was regarded as over generous. A full clawback to the local authority of the equity in any sale is now required within the first ten years. In other words, if a person sells an affordable house in the first ten years there will be a full clawback. This equity will be reduced at a rate of 10% per year between the tenth and twentieth year and no clawback will apply after 20 years. That is reasonable for people selling on affordable houses.

Reference was made in the Seanad to preplanning discussions. It is vital that developers have pre-planning discussions before they embark on expensive plans, so that the planners and the local authority can plan the estate together. Reference was also made in the Seanad to the change in the number of elected members necessary to vote for a section 4. The county council of which I was a member some years ago practised section 4s. However, in recent times, all section 4s have been ruled out on legal grounds. I do not know whether the Minister proposes to address this or whether it is unique to Galway. No section 4 is now acceptable because the manager automatically finds a reason to refuse it on legal grounds. Will the Minister clarify that?

The Deputy needs to draft them more tightly – I will give him a hand.

The Deputy, without interruption.

Deputy Roche was only trying to help me.

The frustration felt by people dealing with planning offices is caused by understaffing. A typical example, particularly in rural areas, is where a young couple, who might be getting married in a year's time, start to build a house. They get their plans drawn up and apply for planning permission in the usual way. They might have purchased a site or have been lucky enough to get one from their parents. In many cases, a day or two before the eight weeks is up further information is sought. This sometimes happens for very flimsy reasons, such as questions about the water supply or getting a letter from the group water scheme confirming they can connect to it. The application is delayed until the applicant gets the necessary documentation and then for a further eight weeks. It would be as easy for the planning authority to discover in the first week that information was not on the file. It takes the same amount of time to examine a planning application in the first week after it is lodged as it does in the eighth week. That can have serious consequences. The young couple might have engaged a builder to build their house but they must wait for their application to be dealt with.

When a public representative inquires about this to the planning office, he or she is told that, due to pressure of work, the planning office was unable to look at the file until the last day or – according to my interpretation – it was easier to seek further information than to deal with it. Couples building houses should not be penalised in that manner.

Another matter that causes great delay in processing planning permissions is the amount of lines on maps indicating new ring roads, bypasses, carriageways and so on. There are sometimes two or three options on the map. Due to the lack of staff in the road planning and design section, correct corridors have not been defined for such roads. Consultants must then be engaged, which takes another six months. In the meantime, no planning permissions can be dealt with in those areas.

Elected members spend a great deal of time – sometimes 20 or 30 meetings over a year – dealing with city or county development plans. We are often greatly frustrated to find afterwards that what we put in the plan can be interpreted differently by the officials and planners. For example, we put a clause in the last county plan for Galway concerning ribbon development. In the previous plan, a development of more than three houses was deemed ribbon development; in the current plan, a development of more than five houses is deemed ribbon development. However, that was interpreted differently by the officials. This is very frustrating for members because they are invoking another clause saying one must preserve the rural character and are refusing planning permissions on that ground.

Debate adjourned
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