Deputy Ulick Burke was in possession. The Deputy has 14 minutes of his time remaining.
Town Renewal Bill, 2000: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
On the last occasion I stated that it is sad that the scheme outlined in the Bill will have a fragmented impact on townscapes. The terms and criteria which apply to the scheme appear to have been borrowed from the urban renewal scheme. As a result, many small towns will not now be upgraded or refurbished.
Will there be unlimited access to incentives relating to refurbishment projects? I am aware that restrictions will be imposed on new buildings, which must be designed in proportion to the size of the town in which they are being erected. If unlimited access to assistance for the refurbishment of townscapes is permitted under the scheme, it will have a larger impact on and will be of greater benefit to towns in general.
Under the Bill, assessments will be carried out by local authorities. This will place an additional burden on staff who are already obliged to deal with the massive workload associated with planning matters, etc. These people will not be able to dedicate adequate time to fully appraising towns and identifying the areas of greatest need. For example, most local authorities have already requested that the Minister allow them to appoint additional professional staff to deal with the huge number of applications for planning permission they have received. It is a mistake to impose on local authorities the responsibility for administering this without providing them with additional resources and professional personnel.
I welcome the fact that a total of 102 towns throughout the country will be designated under the scheme. However, there is a perception abroad in many areas that it was because of the intervention of the local Minister or Government representative that certain towns were included while others were not.
That is not true.
I accept that. However, some people are of the opinion that the inclusion of certain towns came as a direct result of the intervention of Government Deputies or Ministers. We accept that this is not the case because the towns included in the scheme had to be assessed before being granted a designation.
Will the Minister of State indicate if local authorities will be given additional resources and personnel to allow them to implement the scheme on a wide scale? I hope that all towns of a particular size and with a certain level of population will be included in the scheme in the future.
There is a downside to the scheme in that certain developers have moved into towns and identified and acquired sites which may be derelict or semi-derelict. These individuals do not have any intention of proceeding to develop these sites until the incentives on offer under the scheme become available. That is a pity because it will reduce the possibility that local heritage and historical groups which, against all the odds, have sown the seeds of redevelopment in their towns will be able to proceed with their work. These groups have identified buildings which have been upgraded through community fundraising and national lottery funding provided by the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Recreation. It is important we regularise the situation at a national level, rather than proceeding on a piecemeal basis. In that way, derelict buildings which are in need of a necessary facelift could receive that quickly, thereby avoiding developers sitting on them because of their development potential. Developers are entitled to receive assistance in the same way as anyone else but if they acquire properties solely for the purpose of sitting on them to increase their value, that is a retrograde step.
Some of the consultants who have presented reports on designation within certain towns have missed out to a large extent on many of the towns' special features which local area engineers or local authority officers could readily identify because of their familiarity with a town's buildings, streetscapes and needs. Local personnel should be appointed instead of consultants who merely breeze in to a town for a quick look around and produce a report for the relevant local authority.
I welcome the fact that the Minister has provided for wide-scale consultation under the Bill. Consultation has been identified as a very important element in the eventual identification of the areas to be designated. It is important that consultation should occur, particularly with the local groups to which I referred previously. It might prove more beneficial and less costly if the plans prepared by many competent local groups, often with the assistance of professional people be they members of the community group or hired advisers, could be submitted in a formal manner to the Department for assessment. These groups have identified many worthy projects within their areas.
It is regrettable that many public buildings have been excluded from designation. Many smaller towns in rural Ireland have fine public buildings such as courthouses. These buildings have deteriorated over the past 25 years and many are now in a shambles. Some District Court judges have refused to sit in the courthouses because of their condition. The basic structure and fabric of the buildings are intact and they merely require refurbishment. In the past, the responsibility for such refurbishment lay in the hands of the local authorities but they did not have the resources. The responsibility to refurbish these buildings has now passed to the Department of the Environment and Local Government which will act in conjunction with the local authorities. Greater flexibility should have been provided to make courthouses and similar buildings eligible for grant assistance. Some such buildings are no longer in use or perhaps, more appropriately, should no longer be in use.
There are abandoned cinemas in most small rural towns in Ireland. These buildings are boarded up and are usually a target for vandalism. It should be possible to refurbish such buildings quickly. Old churches are a further example of buildings which offer a magnificent opportunity for development and should be refurbished. However, these buildings seem to be excluded from the terms of the Bill in many instances.
One of the objectives of town renewal is the restriction of movement from the inner parts of a town to the surrounding countryside. While that is a very laudable ambition, we must be conscious of the need for rural renewal. If rural renewal is to mean anything, we must bring people back into rural areas. The flight from the land is rampant. It is regrettable that local authorities are restricting people from building houses in the countryside. Initially, restrictions applied to building along national primary routes and we accepted that as being necessary. The restrictions were subsequently applied to national secondary routes. Where sons or daughters of a landowner were previously allowed to build along such routes, most local authorities are now imposing restrictions on them too and are asking them to build at the far end of their parents' farms. That is unfair. If we are serious about rural renewal, we must encourage people to live in the countryside.
We are talking here about renewing town centres, bringing them alive and stopping people leaving towns to live in the countryside. That is all very well but how are we to implement a realistic rural renewal scheme in parallel with that if some of the current restrictions are not relaxed? Certain local authorities, such as Clare County Council, are imposing building restrictions on outsiders or non-nationals who come into the area. We are very close to that point in County Galway. Aside altogether from the restrictions imposed along primary and secondary routes, the prevalence of SACs, NHAs and high amenity areas means that certain areas are being totally blacked out for housing development. We have passed the desirable limit in regard to restrictions.
I hope the Minister will indicate at the earliest opportunity his intention to include all towns for designation, rather than proceeding with the current selective nature of the designation. Some small towns feel they are being left behind once again and that will create a bad atmosphere. This Bill is a very welcome development which will enhance the townscapes of many small towns but all towns should be included.
I wish to share time with Deputy Daly.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to the debate on this legislation which offers tax incentives to smaller towns with a population between 500 and 6,000 people. Such towns are dotted throughout the country, particularly in County Cork. Many of them were vibrant market towns some 20 years ago and were the economic centre for the surrounding agricultural hinterland. These towns have suffered greatly from industry, service and shop closures. This town renewal scheme is twofold. It will encourage residential as well as commercial and industrial development in town centres. This is to be welcomed. Similar tax incentive schemes have encouraged investment in urban and rural communities throughout the country. Investors from the farming community in the west and south have invested heavily in tax incentive schemes in the greater Dublin area. This has drawn finance from rural areas into urban areas where it gained a greater return. I welcome this initiative to help small towns in rural Ireland. The scheme is designed to encourage investment in derelict and decaying infill sites. It could be argued that the scheme is too confined but, despite its faults, it is welcome and will encourage investment in rural Ireland.
County Cork is divided into the three administrative areas of north Cork, south Cork and west Cork. When the scheme was announced by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government last July I suggested that Cork be divided into the same three areas for the purpose of the scheme. Of the 24 towns in County Cork which are eligible for inclusion, seven have now been designated under the original criteria. Had the county been divided in three it would have been possible to designate 12 towns. A precedent for this exists in the housing and sanitary budget which is drawn down from the Department of the Environment and Local Government and is divided among the three areas. It is too late to include this proposal in the Bill but it might be considered in the future.
County councils appointed consultants who visited the towns to be included in the scheme. They corresponded with local people and various interest groups and drew up plans. This was a worthwhile exercise because it encouraged people to think about what could be done with their towns or villages and brought a variety of ideas to the surface. It is now 12 months since the scheme was announced; these developments take time. I hope the Bill will be enacted before the summer recess and that the scheme is operational soon afterwards.
Although the national economy is buoyant there are rural economic blackspots of which Duhallow, the area I represent, is one. It includes the market towns of Millstreet, Kanturk and Newmarket and Kanturk, the capital of the region, has been included in the scheme. The 1997 tax designation scheme for the upper Shannon region has been worthwhile and beneficial. We will fight for a similar tax designation for our part of the country and I ask the Government to bear Duhallow in mind when the relevant decisions are made.
The future of life on the land is not promising and the draw to urban areas is strong. The way to fight back is to loosen planning regulations in rural areas and provide meaningful employment by attracting industries to the rural periphery. I realise this is not easy and that the IDA's priority is to attract industry to Ireland, wherever it is located. This is as it should be. However, we must examine ways of attracting employment to rural areas. In rural areas which have succeeded in attracting industries new houses are being built. Rural areas do not have the problem of housing density. We have plenty of room for new houses. Planning regulations are important but some leniency would be helpful. Problems sometimes arise when people submit plans for enormous houses to be built in the countryside. The planning process would be easier if people planned houses of a reasonable size.
I would have preferred County Cork to be divided into three administrative areas to ensure 12 towns could be included in the scheme. Discussions on this matter are ongoing between Cork County Council and the Department of the Environment and Local Government but I do not expect my proposal to be accepted. I welcome Government action to deal with the decay of small market towns which were once supported by a vibrant agricultural economy. The Bill will ensure money which exists in rural communities will be invested locally. I commend the Bill to the House.
I thank Deputy Moynihan for affording me the opportunity to speak on this Bill. I compliment the Minister, his Department and the advisory panel who did a great deal of work on this subject in the past few years.
I did not think further legislation would have been necessary. The 1998 Bill was recently enacted. However, this Bill is worthwhile and will revitalise towns and villages. This is necessary because small towns and villages, especially in the west, are in terminal decline. Many small towns and villages in the most scenic parts of Ireland do not have a basic sewerage system. It is an indictment of several Departments that places such as Carrigaholt, Cooraclare, Labasheeda, Mullagh, Broadford and O'Brien's Bridge, which are located in the most scenic parts of Ireland and attract many tourists, do not have a sewerage system.
Raw sewage is entering some of our most important waterways such as the Shannon Estuary and some of the smaller river catchments. This needs urgent attention, which I would like to see coupled with renewal. There should be some new vigour in the Department of the Environment and Local Government and in the local authorities with regard to expediting some of these small schemes. For many years, we did not have the finances for this, but the money is available now and people are willing to become involved in these schemes. The rural population has been mentioned by previous speakers. It is desirable that we revitalise the towns and villages. We cannot do that without putting in some of the basic infrastructure so necessary to enable that to be done.
This legislation is a renewal Bill. The examples of renewal in Temple Bar, Ennis, and Limerick will give a major incentive to these areas to develop and expand. Apart from the villages I have mentioned, there are important villages in every county, with historic links to people. An example is Liscannor and its connection with John Philip Holland who invented the submarine. Huge arrangements are being made in the United States currently to commemorate John Philip Holland. We do not have any similar type of effort being made in counties such as my own, especially in towns like Liscannor. This legislation will encourage this type of activity, because its mandate is to develop our heritage and cultural sites. Further down the west coast, Doonaha has connections with Eugene O'Curry and the important cultural work done by him. There is a very small memorial in Doonaha, at the birthplace of Eugene O'Curry, but other than that, there has been very little, if anything, done by way of commemoration of some of these important people who made a major contribution to our culture, heritage and inventions over the centuries.
This legislation can afford the opportunity to undertake some of these projects. I would like to see a scheme of grant assistance coupled to this legislation. This is being planned under a different Department but one of the difficulties in this area over the years is to marry together the operations of one Department with another. The Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands runs one set of schemes, the Department of the Environment and Local Government does something else and the Department of Finance is very careful in saying, as it has with regard to this scheme, that it does not expect to spend excessive money on it. That is the wrong attitude to take at the outset. If there was one handicap with the urban renewal scheme at Shannon in 1998, it was that the areas were so restricted in Shannon that the opportunity to do any worthwhile development was hampered from the very outset. While we have work going ahead now in the area designated in Shannon, the area was so small that it made little or no significant impact on the overall development of the town in its amenities, facilities and the opportunities it gave to the community in Shannon to expand and develop further.
If the Department of Finance initially adopts the attitude that this will not cost very much, as indicated in the last section of the Bill, then it is adopting a penny-pinching and wrong approach to this whole area. Many developments would not have occurred were it not for the incentives provided to them. I see glaring omissions here on which I need to get some replies from the Minister before we conclude the debate on this legislation.
For instance, the 1998 Urban Renewal Act in section 10 outlined a very clear mandate relating to rates remissions connected with the designated areas. There is not a similar provision in this Bill. Perhaps it is not necessary. Perhaps section 10 of the 1998 Act can be used to cover these areas or is rates remission deliberately left out in these developments? If it is, then some of these towns and villages are already at a disadvantage as against the areas which have that provision under the earlier legislation. If the Minister can assure me that the rates remission applies in this area, I will be satisfied, but it looks very sinister if a provision similar to what was provided for in the earlier legislation is not included in this Bill. There are sections in this legislation relating to taxation similar to those included in the earlier legislation, but I will not go into these now. They are all spelt out in the legislation here. It is necessary to get some clarification from the Minister on the provision relating to rates remissions and whether that will apply.
There is also an omission in this legislation in that it does not provide for any kind of appeal mechanism whereby people aggrieved by the decisions can apply either to the local authority or to the Minister with regard to the designation of certain areas. There are great expectations relating to this scheme. There is an expectation that this will revitalise the towns currently in terminal decline and put them back on a firm economic and social footing again. If, at the start – as is indicated by this Bill when we say it will not cost the Exchequer very much – we restrict the areas for inclusion in the town plans which are currently being examined by the advisory panel, we will defeat this scheme before it ever starts.
I intervene here today to appeal to the expert advisory panel, to carefully examine the plans submitted by the various local authorities and to think very carefully before they decide to exclude part of the areas which have been included in the overall scheme of things. The people who know best about these issues are the members and executives of the local authority who have a first hand knowledge of these towns and villages.
Before the expert panel of the Department decides to exclude from the scheme, any area submitted as part of a plan, there should be very careful consideration and some mechanism of appeal.
I make one final appeal to the Department relating to many disused farm buildings that now are a blight on the landscape, especially in the scenic areas. There is scarcely a village in the areas of the country that I know, where one would not see disused haysheds, the roof half hanging off, alongside new modern facilities. There is not any real incentive for people to remove these derelict buildings. There is power under the Derelict Sites Act to do these things, but local authorities will not use it. Local authorities have enough problems without getting involved in disputes with local landowners and farmers in particular, and some of these buildings may have sentimental value and so on. However, in every town or village in Ireland one will see four or five structures, the removal of which could make a major improvement in the environment of the village. There should be some kind of grant incentive to enable that to be done. These places could be identified through the local authorities and it would be easy to deal with them. It would not cost a huge amount of money but some incentive should be given to take down disused, rusting haysheds or haybarns which will not be used again but are nevertheless left there to fall into decay and destroy the appearance of a place.
I appeal to the Department to look again at towns such Lisdoonvarna, Tulla and Killadysert and some of the smaller ones which have been left out of this scheme and not to wait for a three year period before they are included in a scheme. These schemes should be run together to include as many of these villages as we can into this scheme. We need an effective scheme that will make a major impact on the development of the towns in rural areas.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): A Cheann Comhairle, I wish to share my time with Deputy Connaughton.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
(Carlow-Kilkenny): Cuirim fáilte roimh an mBille mar tá sé thar am dúinn tacaíocht a thabhairt do na bailte beaga ar fud na tíre. Tá sé deacair go leor dóibh bheith i gcoimhlint leis na bailte móra agus ní chóir go mbeadh an donas ar fad ag titim orthu toisc go bhfuil lucht na ngnó móra sna bailte móra.
It is important for that reason that something is done to help small towns compete with larger ones. I am glad to have the opportunity to discuss this because rural Ireland must survive and this debate provided me with another opportunity to read Goldsmith's Deserted Village. All of us know about the village schoolmaster and parson. Some 250 years ago Goldsmith was worried about the decline of rural Ireland and its population. He wrote:
E'en now the devastation is begun,
And half the business of destruction done,
E'en now, methinks, as pond'ring here I stand,
I see the real virtues leave the land,
There should be an Oliver Goldsmith every decade to write about rural Ireland and to remind us of its importance.
Planning is a problem in rural areas. Small towns depend on people coming in from the surrounding areas to spend their money. Everything possible should be done to prevent them from driving to the nearest big towns and cities to do their shopping. If planning permission is not granted in the countryside, the population will decline and schools, football teams and so on will suffer. I know a balance must be struck but it has tilted radically in favour of lovely countryside with pasture land and trees. Tourists tell us it is beautiful driving through our countryside but that very few people live there. The balance must be right and the number of planning applications being refused is over the top. The concept of sterilisation has been introduced for the granting of planning permission. When a site is sold, the landowner is asked to sign a sterilisation order. I have fought this to the bitter end at local authority level and even though the period involved has been reduced to seven years, such orders should not be necessary.
Dúchas has an important role to play but it must also get the balance right. It can request a survey from an archaeologist even for a planning permission for a house. This creates great expense and causes major delays because archaeologists are not plentiful. Archaeologists must provide surveys on urban renewal and obtain licences but there are not enough of them, even though extra appointments were made. Such hold-ups give rise to problems. Dúchas must protect our heritage and so on, but it must speed up its work. Applicants are often asked to obtain a report from an archaeologist who might take six weeks even to reply, not to mention carry out the survey. The process can take a long time.
This scheme will enable people in small towns to renew buildings and improve their appearance and that, in turn, will increase business. People are not interested in investing in dilapidated towns. I welcome the tax concessions introduced under the scheme. I hope they are significant enough to encourage people to invest in small towns. If they are, towns such as Tullow, Muine Bheag and Borris in County Carlow, which could do with a boost, will be able to compete with bigger towns and cities in the region, such as Kilkenny city, which is still a city. My colleague, Deputy McGuinness, would not like me to forget it is a city. Carlow is not a city but I am sure it will become one in time.
Shops in towns such as Tullow and Muine Bheag must purchase goods at higher prices and compete with bigger places, such as Carlow and Kilkenny, which have all the major supermarkets. It is difficult for such small towns to survive and, for that reason, I welcome the Bill.
If small towns are modernised they will attract industry. Some towns depend on shops for employment and commercial activity and they need factories to generate employment and business. Small towns need these schemes. Investors will be encouraged to participate in them, but they must get a return. I quoted Oliver Goldsmith, whose philosophy in life related to the decline of rural Ireland. The present generation must make sure small towns and villages are not forgotten as a result of the provision of increased grants for bigger towns with more facilities to attract industry. I welcome the Bill.
I also welcome the Bill because I have been interested in town renewal for many years. It is an important area and 13 minutes is not enough to encompass everything I would like to raise. However, I will refer to a few fundamental matters.
Many of us who live and work in rural Ireland meet local development associations which represent small towns. Many of them, despite the Celtic tiger economy, genuinely believe they are not being assisted. This is not a political point as they made the same comment when we were in Government. As Deputy Daly stated, if a town or village does not have a sewerage scheme and has a bad water supply, investors will not be interested in investing there. Such villages are not suitable for the construction of new houses and any potential commercial activity in the town would be restricted. Investment in infrastructure is important for such towns and the money is available now, which was not the case in the past.
Small villages will be revitalised as a result of this legislation. There is another major change in this scheme. Urban renewal schemes were successful and dramatic improvements were made in some towns and cities as a result. They were developer-driven and most rotated between a number of developers. There was nothing wrong with that because they came up with the goods. Given that strict building specifications were outlined, the result has at least been orderly and well planned. The problem for small towns is that, despite the financial aids which are in place generally, unless there is a commercial aspect to a scheme it will make no appreciable difference. This may even apply to towns included in this scheme. I am not saying the Minister is wrong because the scheme is in place and all towns will have an opportunity to develop.
Galway County Council employed consultants to select the towns that would qualify under the scheme and Portumna, Headford, Loughrea, Clifden and Ballygar were chosen. They deserve an opportunity to develop. There is nothing wrong with that, but I have a bee in my bonnet about the fact that my own village of Mount Bellew has been left out. I held the county council meeting up for half an hour over the matter because no matter what criteria were used, it should have been included, yet it was not. All we can hope for is that it will be included the next time.
The Minister has been most anxious to get a spread of fairly big towns and smaller villages included in the renewal scheme. Naturally, if one takes a big town that is not far from Galway, it will have a better chance of making a go of things than a small town 30 or 40 miles from the centre of activity that is Galway city. We are very lucky in the west to have such an anchor city. Many people say, however, that Galway has sucked everything into its own urban area and there is a certain degree of truth in that, but how much worse off we would be in the west if we did not have that anchor? We now want to suck the activity back out again into the surrounding areas, or at least stop too many people wanting to live and work in Galway city. The same problem exists in Cork, Limerick and elsewhere, but how does one tackle it?
The Bill tries to give a hand to developing towns. For whatever reason, there can be huge differences between towns and villages. It is difficult to understand why sometimes a small village can do very well while five miles away another village is dying. Even before the town renewal scheme commenced, some smaller towns in the west had been doing well. One feature of that success is that on weekday mornings and evenings, particularly on Fridays, there are traffic jams one would not have thought possible before. The problems are similar to those of Dublin at the moment because so many people now have cars and they tend to congregate in towns and villages at the same times.
I have been a member of Galway County Council for some time but I would not claim to have all the answers as regards the factors that influence growth in towns and villages. Until recently, it appeared that the speed limit sign – or the lollipop as I call it – was the determining factor in what happened in a town or village. In other words, if one was living within the speed limit area, one could nearly build what one wanted, including an incinerator but if one was outside the speed limit area there were huge problems obtaining planning permission for development. That does not represent good planning.
The Galway county manager has always said – and I think it is a view shared by most council members – that the sooner we get to the stage where we have a plan for individual towns the better. We already have such plans for some of the bigger towns, but I am referring to smaller towns. Such a plan should envisage what will happen to planning in a town over the next ten, 15 or 20 years. It may not bear any relationship to the speed limit area, so that development could take place either within or outside that limit but the town plan would include all the necessary infrastructure, including the renewal scheme which would become part of the plan.
In order to do this, however, one would have to undertake extensive local negotiations. In recent years I have seen a dramatic change with local people wanting a greater input into the development and planning of their own areas. While it is difficult enough to achieve a local consensus, I hope it will materialise over the next few years. If the matter is approached in that manner, we will have the unique towns and villages people want and deserve.
I do not want to see a sameness about every single village, although we are moving towards that sort of scenario. One would like to think that when we modernise the heart of a rural village, which is its square, it will bear some resemblance to the history and character of the area. Unfortunately, there is a huge degree of sameness which may be due to the fact that the country's limited number of design engineers and consultants are all feeding out of the one pot, so to speak. To avoid that sameness in local development projects, our town developers and chambers of commerce should become much more integrated in the planning process. That would present a greater chance to achieve a degree of uniqueness in rural development.
Traffic has become a major problem in bigger towns. More particularly, since the housing crisis hit us, there are several small villages and towns in my county, and I am sure in every other county, where rented accommodation is not available for newly married couples. Such accommodation is needed, yet it is not being provided. The town renewal scheme envisaged in the Bill should help to rectify this problem by encouraging business people to examine the commercial aspect.
Some towns are able to spark off themselves and they develop a good community infrastructure in which people become involved by taking their responsibilities seriously. Towns such as Kiltimagh in County Mayo have been transformed and people come from all over Europe to see what the local community has achieved there. The Bill represents part of that renewal programme whereby people can achieve such things under proper supervision and direction while basing development on the character of a town that its inhabitants desire.
The Bill includes provision for expert advice with regard to town development projects. I do not know whether such advice will be free through local councils, or through consultants as we planned it on Galway County Council. There we hired consultants to examine the various parts of towns we thought would meet the criteria of the previous Bill. Such professional advice is useful for small communities. Perhaps the Minister could elaborate on that point when he is summing up. As the Minister knows, the problem with a local community is that one can have all the ideas in the world, but the minute they are committed to paper the process becomes costly. I hope people will be able to tap into a cheap, or free, reservoir of expert advice when planning local development schemes. There is a big gap between what people want and the plans that will ultimately be agreed.
While I wish the legislation well, I assume that some changes may be made to the Bill.
I wish to share my time with Deputies Wade and McGuinness.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I congratulate the Minister and the Minister of State on introducing this legislation which will provide new tax incentives to rejuvenate our towns. There is a need to address the issues of social and economic under-development in rural Ireland.
Politicians are often asked what Governments can do to provide rejuvenation and employment in smaller towns. The debate about decentralisation is growing and many smaller towns are considering that issue in the context of renewal and development. There are many spin-offs from decentralisation, including the employment of local people in national bodies. I hope the Minister will refer to this in his reply given that the Minister for Finance said that up to 70% of civil servants could be located outside Dublin by 2003.
There is a particular emphasis on small towns in the Bill. The Minister mentioned a population level of between 500 and 6,000. In the context of decentralisation, there has been too much emphasis on Dublin for too long. There is a need for more decision making at local and county council level by people who are involved in voluntary work in towns. The town renewal scheme involved the preparation by county councils of renewal plans which were submitted to the Minister for the Environment and Local Government. The Minister can make recommendations to the Minister for Finance in relation to the application of town renewal tax reliefs.
Five towns in County Galway – Portumna, Headford, Loughrea, Ballygar and Clifden – were selected and the Minister will shortly announce the various designations. It is important that this scheme is put into operation in County Galway because no part of the county was included in the upper Shannon tax relief designation. This was a disappointment.
Galway city is one of the most expensive areas for housing. Many smaller towns and communities are considering the provision of housing and I am glad that the mix takes account of younger families, the elderly and single people. However, there have been many difficulties in relation to those plans. For example, in Turloughmore and Newcastle near Athenry, planning permission was granted by the county council but this was overturned by An Bord Pléanála. One of the reasons given for the refusal was that the county development plan needed to be amended. Some of the schemes were perhaps too big for the villages but they should be reconsidered, particularly in relation to sewerage schemes which are much needed. They should be advanced so that services are available for small housing schemes. I agree that building inside speed limits is not always the answer. Other issues are involved and they should be considered.
The urban renewal scheme was successful in Galway city and towns such as Ballinasloe and Tuam. I hope this scheme will also be successful. There are great opportunities in the western region where hopefully natural gas will be brought ashore and a new gas fired generation station will be built. The ESB is currently exploring ways of improving the electricity service in County Galway, including a new line from Portumna to Athenry. All those issues, in addition to the fact that the region has been granted Objective One status, should ensure development.
Many small towns are suffering because the commercial banks have decided, without any consultation, to close branches in communities. They are leaving behind a large customer base. The banks may now see the advantage of town renewal and get involved in negotiations. In Great Britain, negotiations are ongoing with the Royal Mail in relation to post offices. Negotiations with An Post should be opened with a view to providing banking services and ATMs so people have financial services in their towns.
There has been criticism of the small number of towns which qualified. In larger counties such as Cork and Galway, people made the case for a bigger number. There has also been criticism of the population of 500 yardstick. I hope the Minister will consider those issues because we all thought Mount Bellew, which Deputy Connaughton mentioned, would be included but that was not the case. It will be included in other schemes such as the green town awards, but it would be suitable for inclusion in the town renewal scheme.
A total of 102 plans have been received in the Department. I hope these towns which are already working to improve their education facilities and health services will get the go-ahead from the Department. I hope also that they do not become dormitory towns. There is a danger that towns within a 20 mile or 30 mile radius of a big city such as Galway will become dormitory areas. These towns need to be developed. They need a boost and they will receive it under the Bill. I congratulate the Minister and welcome the Bill's introduction.
I congratulate the Minister and his officials on this important initiative which will undoubtedly contribute to the revitalisation of many small to medium sized towns. Many important lessons have been learned from the Government's experience of tackling the problems of urban decay in major city centres and larger towns. Many smaller towns have also suffered from the problems associated with dereliction and the Bill's provisions will enable many small rural centres to regenerate themselves along lines that will make a contribution to rebalancing development in a way that takes the pressure off major urban centres.
Small towns have a right to the same type of development that many major urban centres have enjoyed over the past decade. The Bill contains a number of important principles relating to the physical renewal and revitalisation of towns, the promotion of towns as cultural, commercial, residential and social centres and the enhancement of existing amenities, heritage, the environment and the promotion of sustainable development patterns. County councils have an important role to play in this area and I am pleased that my council in County Limerick has taken an active interest in the scheme.
The towns of Castleconnell, Abbeyfeale, Kilmallock, Croom and Rathkeale have been already submitted by the council for designation under the redevelopment incentive package. Charleville, which straddles the Cork-Limerick border, is an important focal point for south Limerick. It is also included on the designation application list. Bruree, the birthplace of de Valera, is also set to double in size in the coming years. It is good that his vision of Ireland is being recreated in a slightly different form but which provides work and housing at home for anybody who wants it. I am confident that under the Bill's provisions the adjoining councils can work in harmony to develop these towns and serve the population in two counties. The Bruree/Charleville area will be a good example in that regard.
The current national development plan sets out a comprehensive and practical philosophy as well as a huge range of detailed measures and programmes to address the various issues arising from the unprecedented economic and social development that society has undergone over the past five or six years. It also provides a framework to develop our economy and society in a balanced and caring way for the next decade or so. The town renewal scheme is another element of the integrated plan the Government is preparing for the development of our society and economy over the next decade.
The Government has a responsibility to ensure that the benefits of the current economic boom are spread as widely as possible. It is also concerned that smaller communities get the opportunity to build themselves up as part of the new found prosperity. The Government's White Paper, a Strategy for Rural Development in Ireland, published last year, provides a coherent strategy to address the problems of social and economic development in rural Ireland. It must not be forgotten that although County Limerick has a major city in its boundaries, it also contains many towns and villages which have yet to benefit from the boom in recent years.
The Bill provides the framework for the development of these towns and villages and I hope that the towns for which applications for designation have been made will be supplemented by additional areas in my native county, and particularly villages such as Caherconlish which was not included earlier. Its inclusion should be reconsidered.
Regional development is important for rural Ireland. The national development plan is the first to address the regionalisation concept with regional development operational programmes for the Border, midlands and western regions as well as the southern and eastern regions. I do not have time to make further points but I welcome the Bill and I am confident it will work well for rural Ireland.
I wish to share my time with Deputy McGuinness.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
I agree with the content of the Bill and the general concept of tax designation and town renewal. Kilkenny city was included in the earlier tax designation scheme. I hope we have learned something from that scheme. However, there were downsides to the tax designation scheme in places such as Kilkenny city. The efforts of the local authority in Kilkenny over the years were set to one side by An Bord Pleanála when planning applications, which were refused by the local authority, were subsequently passed by An Bord Pleanála. This left a trail of destruction in the city. Part of its medieval heart was destroyed because of the insensitive way An Bord Pleanála dealt with the planning applications.
We have seen in Kilkenny some of the worst examples of pastiche and facades. I hope this will not be repeated in the town renewal scheme. Some of the finest buildings in Kilkenny were torn down and all that was left were the facades. The backs of the buildings are now presented as modern buildings. It is a disgrace that some of the finest features in those buildings – such as period fireplaces – were torn out and sold.
Towns and villages are not only threatened with neglect but with road programmes. I do not disagree with the manner in which we are developing our country but we must be more sensitive about towns and villages. In Piltown, for example, the motorway runs within two feet of a man's farmyard. His rights were ignored by the National Roads Authority. He was not given an opportunity to defend his position and his family are suffering as a result. Building a 12 or 14 feet wall outside their back door is not the way to accommodate their needs and rights. I often wonder if such bodies are accountable. If parliamentary questions are tabled on this issue, they are disallowed because we do not have a direct input into what the NRA does, yet we fund it.
Another example of how a local village or town was destroyed is in Milltown in County Kilkenny where a local community was divided in two by the construction of a bypass. I accept the motorway was necessary but we must learn to find some way to ensure that the rights of farmers, landowners, householders and communities are looked after. It cannot always be a victory of Pythagoras over Picasso. Local authorities and the NRA must learn to accommodate towns and villages when planning roads rather than adopting a straight line policy. Road construction is a continuous and serious threat. This House must have more control over what is happening in our countryside.
I welcome the town renewal scheme because it gives towns and villages outside the main urban centres the opportunity to participate in our continued growth. We must ensure through the planning process that the streetscapes, character and general history of these towns and villages are maintained. Other speakers referred to the fact that most parts of the country look the same because they all have cobblelock paving and Victorian type street fixtures. Local authorities should be encouraged to ensure that the character of buildings in villages is maintained. Local materials or similar type materials should be used in the construction of infill sites.
In one submission from Carlow and Kilkenny the areas designated in Tinnahinch and Graiguenamanagh did not include the riverside area which was the main trading area in Graiguenamanagh for many years ago. Yet there is a large number of derelict buildings along the river. It should have been included to improve the streetscape in that area. Arguments were made about excluding sites. I ask the review group to use its discretion when considering the applications to include sites which are not included. An appeals system should be put in place so that decisions can be appealed if people are not satisfied with them.
Castlecomer, Thomastown and Graiguenamanagh in County Kilkenny are designated as high priority towns on the county council's list for sewage treatment plants. Planning permission cannot be granted because the infrastructure does not exist for housing projects. It is time for the Department to provide sufficient funding to ensure that a system to deal with the sewage problems in these towns is put in place. If that does not happen and the planners continue to refuse to grant planning permission, the town renewal scheme will fail.
Planning sections of almost every local authority must ensure that a number of disciplines are represented. The engineering staff, for example, should be complemented by architects and town planners. However, that is not the case in some local authorities, including my own. Qualified people cannot be found. Many employees in the public sector are leaving for the private sector because remuneration and the prospects for promotion are better. Local government faces many challenges. The Planning and Development Bill and this legislation will place further pressures and demands on local government employees. We must ensure proper funding is provided to increase staffing levels. I appeal again to the Minister to examine the role played by An Bord Pleanála in relation to this development and to ensure it conforms with the county development plans in these areas.
I wish to share my time with Deputy Ó Caoláin.
That is agreed.
I welcome the principle and the thrust of the Bill. It is designed to try to revitalise town centres and is aimed particularly at refurbishment and some small new building projects. This is an issue I have followed closely since it was initiated last July.
Deputy McGuinness hoped that we have learned from the mistakes of the past. The Bill is welcome but it will be a disaster. The people who drew up the Bill and who will have to implement it are the local authorities which, particularly my own local authority in Wicklow, are under-resourced. They do not have the time to deal with routine matters as opposed to getting innovative projects off the ground.
In his contribution Deputy Dukes mentioned that the Bill should have come before the House in February or March. I disagree with him. The Bill should have been before the House this time last year.
Even better.
That delay will cause untold trouble.
Deputy McGuinness talked about Kilkenny. I am familiar with the streets off High Street, including Evans Lane and Butter Slip, and they are a disaster. Every corner of the place is built up. There is no space and no sunlight. Developers are selling property for astronomical sums to people who are benefiting from the tax reliefs. Those properties are being rented out at a very high price to young people, most of whom are being subsidised by the health board. It is a national scandal and we are not addressing it because we are too concerned with pushing through legislation containing nice ideas which look good on paper but which turn out to be a disaster.
Last July a circular was sent to the local authorities requesting them to select a certain number of towns in each county. Various criteria were laid down – I think the population figure was between 500 and 6,000 people – and submissions had to be made by the end of October. Most members of local authorities were not even aware that this development was taking place until a few weeks before the submission was ready. Fortunately in Wicklow, the county manager and the management team had selected five towns following discussions with people, and in my view the correct five towns were selected, but the difficulty was in preparing the submission. They did not have the resources to do it themselves. They had to get a private consultant, whom I met. I should say, given the current climate, that members of my family have property in the designated area. However, it was not possible for the consultant to examine even one town in the minute detail that was required to make this scheme successful.
Members of the community received a circular stating that there would be a public meeting and inviting them to the discussion if they had any ideas for their property. There are many derelict buildings in the centre of every small town because families have died or moved away or the people who own them might be out of the country or in Dublin. I know from the submissions received in County Wicklow that many of the buildings that should have been included in schemes were not included because a submission was not made by the owners of the property. I realise the Department officials will say they had adequate opportunity in that they were sent a circular but that argument does not hold up when one examines the facts of the case.
I put forward a motion at county council level that all the buildings in the town with which I am most familiar, my home town, be included for refurbishment. I am aware that the policy of the Department is that we cannot put a blanket designation on the area. However, I ask it to examine this concept because in a year or two from now, somebody might notice that their neighbour is refurbishing a building and that they got certain tax reliefs and the individual who has got nothing will probably be in a far worse position. That will give rise to a lot of friction. This Bill should have preceded the developments that have taken place over the past nine months and local authorities should have been adequately resourced. Local authorities are familiar with the towns but the planning and engineering staff did not have time to address the everyday problems, let alone draw up any schedules.
There is another weakness in the Bill. The directive which came out stated that the section 23 provision should be used sparingly and I can understand the principle behind that, but in many of these towns one or two individuals own much of the property. Owner-occupier benefit is no use to them because they can only live in one property. I know many of them have sought the section 23 option, and the principle that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is not something I would be in favour of, but if we are trying to get the buildings refurbished, we will have to examine the possibility of being more generous in regard to granting section 23 provisions. If the Minister decides that he does not want to make people richer, let him suffer the consequences that the buildings will remain dilapidated. Those are the facts of the matter. These people will not sell the property on to other people who can benefit from the owner-occupier measure.
Initially the scheme was to be implemented on a pro rata basis, starting at three hectares per 6,000 people, but a directive was issued during the period that every town could have up to three hectares. I have seen the submissions that were made. Those of us who grew up in small towns spent a lot of time playing in back gardens. We will now have more development in and around town centres but that will be at a cost. There will be no green spaces or back gardens. That applies across the board to all our housing and no one is more at fault than local authorities. They build estates without providing green spaces. We are talking about increased densities. I do not know if Deputy Dukes agrees with increased densities but when I drive from west Wicklow to Greystones I come to the top of a hill overlooking Kilpeddar and the amount of building I can see is minuscule. There are thousands of acres of green space yet we have to have higher densities.
There is a social cost because children have no where to go. They sit in front of the video or play with their Pokémon cards but they never run around a field because there is no space. They cannot do what children did years ago because there is so much difficulty with public litigation and the fear that it is not safe to let children wander, yet we are going to cram these buildings into town centres.
This scheme will cause many difficulties. I realise there is a three or four year time-span and that previous designations were always extended but a major difficulty in the town renewal scheme is that in addition to the scarcity of builders due to the current boom, disputes will arise over rights of way, ownership of property, etc. It can be difficult to say in small towns who owns what piece of property at the back of a building, so there will be a lot of litigation and disputes. I do not know how the scheme will work out but we will have to be flexible with a view to extending the time limit on the scheme.
The scheme should be extended to include some theme villages. Abbeyleix and Lismore have benefited from their heritage town status. There are many other small villages with a population below 500. I am thinking specifically of Ballyknockan in Wicklow, probably the only granite village in the country, which has many dilapidated buildings. It need not necessarily be Ballyknockan – I am sure there are many other small villages around the country with which people can identify that should be designated as theme villages. That will help to revitalise our tourism industry. People who have these properties are not wealthy, there is no incentive for them to refurbish them and they will not sell them.
Deputy McGuinness alluded to An Bord Pleanála, the NRA and Bord Fáilte. I realise I am digressing a little but Bord Fáilte employed Fitzpatrick consultants to carry out a survey in January 1999 with a view to examining the regional tourism structures. I have tried to get a copy of that document from the Minister and Bord Fáilte, which must contain recommendations detrimental to Bord Fáilte. I have been unable to get a copy of that document, a year and a half later.
We, as politicians, created the monsters that are An Bord Pleanála, Bord Fáilte and the NRA. There were created out of fear of the great modern day concept of political interference. At least politicians are answerable to the people. If we do something that dissatisfies them, as we witnessed, they can give us a good kick, and that is how it should be, but we should not be afraid to accept responsibility. We should not hand over responsibility for virtually all areas to other bodies. It will be the case soon that when one tables a question to a Minister – as it is the case with some Ministers – it will be difficult to know the area for which he or she is responsible. That is not the fault of this Government but of successive Governments and we should try to address it.
Bord Fáilte, the NRA and An Bord Pleanála should be disbanded and the relevant Ministers and Departments should be made responsible for those areas. We have enough civil servants who are answerable hiding behind such bureaucrats. Young people living in their local areas who have sought planning permission from Wicklow County Council and appealed their applications to An Bord Pleanála have been refused permission by that faceless body. The position is crazy. That comment is not a reflection on the staff in An Bord Pleanála. We must remember they are human beings and subject to the same prejudices as I am.
The urban renewal scheme has been welcome and, on the whole, successful. It has helped to breathe new life into towns and has been especially beneficial to counties, such as the Border counties, which have not benefited from the economic upturn to anywhere near the same extent as other regions.
I also welcome the successor to the urban renewal scheme, the town renewal scheme, which this Bill places on a statutory basis. However, I share with other Members a deep sense of frustration at the Government's approach. We are being asked to legislate in retrospect for a scheme that is already at an advanced stage with towns currently awaiting approval of their schemes from the Minister for Finance. We are asked to deem that sections 3 to 6, inclusive, have come into operation as from 16 February 1999.
The Minister of State spoke of town renewal as an important element in the Government's planning policy and spatial strategy. When the Government cannot properly plan its business in the Oireachtas, what faith can we have in its ability to plan for the country? In this case, the cart is literally miles ahead of the horse. As a local authority member and a Teachta Dála who has been involved in the town renewal process, I deeply resent the way this legislation has been literally turned on its head. We, the legislators, should have been given the opportunity to shape the legislation long before the scheme was put in place. Instead we are asked to rubber stamp the existing scheme. I would like to know why this approach was adopted. I hope the Minister of State will elaborate on that in his reply.
In my home county of Monaghan four towns were short listed, three were selected for submission and the fourth, Carrickmacross, as the Leas-Cheann Comhairle will know, was left, to all intents and purposes, to fend for itself. Two of six towns were dropped from the list for County Cavan, Kingscourt and Virginia. Those and other provincial towns should be given every assistance and equal access to all supports.
I wrote to the Minister for Finance in February asking him to state the Government's intent towards those towns that were eliminated in the initial selection process, penalised in many instances and, as in the case of Carrickmacross, for the go-ahead energy of many in its business sector and the positive community impact on that town's appearance as a result of much hard work by a dedicated Tidy Town's voluntary effort. The Minister for Finance replied explaining the selection process. He concluded that designations in the towns selected will apply for a period of three years, after which the designation of further areas will be considered. I would like the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to explain this. Is it the case that, after the initial three year period of first designations, further areas in the already designated towns will be considered or that towns not included in the initial selection can be considered? These are matters that could have been teased out if legislation had been introduced initially followed by the implementation of the scheme.
There remain many questions to be answered, not least when a final decision will issue on the proposals submitted for the 102 towns short listed. There is much anxiety in urban centres throughout the jurisdiction. It is my earnest hope that all proposals included in the plans currently under consideration will be approved and that, following the three year period of designation, new and further proposals within those towns and towns not included in the current short list will be afforded the same, or preferably improved, incentives and supports.
It is my view that the scheme has a number of deficiencies and can be improved. We could have addressed them if the opportunity for a proper debate had been provided. The potential impact of a dynamic town renewal scheme and of urban centres, particularly in the Border, midland and western regions, must be apparent to all. Promising decentralisation of Departments and services and urging industrial investors to site in underdeveloped areas and yet, at the same time, operating what is, in the final analysis, a begrudg ing and minimalist approach to urban renewal, points up the inconsistencies in the Government's approach. The so-called loss to the Exchequer that the measures contained in the current scheme represent pale into insignificance when measured against the potential economic upturn that must result from the rejuvenation of long neglected rural towns.
I strongly commend to the Ministers for Finance and the Environment and Local Government the specific proposals contained in the overall plan submitted by the towns of Cavan, Ballyjamesduff, Bailieborough and Cootehill at one end of my constituency and the towns of Clones, Ballybay and Castleblayney at the other. I hope that no one in those deserving communities will be disappointed when the final approvals issue.
I wish to share my time with Deputies Moloney, Killeen and Matt Brennan.
That is agreed.
This Bill is welcome and timely. It is important for us, as a society, to ensure that the benefits of the Celtic tiger are distributed throughout the country. The small rural town will be afforded the opportunity to develop and prosper without being swallowed up by large urban settlements. It will retain its uniqueness while being able to offer its business people and inhabitants incentives to live and work within the community.
I welcome the Bill for a number of key reasons. Small towns will now be able to compete with large towns as good places to establish businesses. Economic prosperity will be brought to towns that have fought decline for decades. Local authorities will focus on those small towns for strategic planning. It will offer a meaningful tool for those working within community development. There are incentives that will remove the fear of town closure, so to speak, with towns close to Dublin becoming merely dormitory towns.
Models exist to ensure the experience in small towns is positive, given that the urban renewal scheme has worked well in larger urban centres. I recognise the benefits this Bill will bring to my constituency by developing towns like Oldcastle and Kells. It has already brought welcome changes to towns such as the central town of Navan. The opportunity exists to make a meaningful contribution to those living in small rural towns. We hear the language of decline, closure, transfers, rationalisation, but none of those terms takes into consideration the unprecedented economic prosperity this country is experiencing. The Bill seeks to address this imbalance and to share the wealth and success. The Government is ensuring that the prosperity is shared and that those who need help are given support in a meaningful way.
The economic benefits will be measured but there are factors which cannot be measured, such as the quality of life for those living in towns such as Oldcastle and Kells. In my constituency I am aware of the hard work done by communities as they try to promote development and maintain services in small towns. The Bill gives those communities real opportunities to make a difference. These communities can now grasp the opportunity to encourage inward investment by making it attractive to establish a business and set up home in the designated towns, provide a viable alternative to those who do not want to set up business in Dublin and afford people the opportunity to make a living in their own home town, thereby removing the necessity for people to commute to larger urban centres. This in turn will take pressure off the roads. Facilities and services, including child care, will be developed locally so that parents are not seeking services in an already over-stretched Dublin. Town centres will have people living over their offices and shops. This will bring a new vibrancy to towns and help entrepreneurs to keep overheads low. The benefits will be enormous – jobs, investment, services, consolidation of communities, etc.
The Minister has taken an important first step through this legislation. The new business community should be encouraged to continue to get involved in all aspects of development in these towns and should try to identify opportunities which will bring prosperity to the towns. In the case of Oldcastle and Kells there is an opportunity to exploit the proximity to Dublin but there is also the benefit of not having to overstretch infrastructure. There are real advantages in being located outside the city. I look forward to the ideas and partnerships which will evolve as part of the process of renewal. We must not see the passing of this most welcome Bill as an end in itself. It is important that local communities and local authorities respond to the partnership provision contained in the Bill.
I thank the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, and his two Ministers of State for the work they have done, for introducing the Bill and bringing urban renewal to some of our smaller towns.
I also welcome the Bill. I have seen the benefits of the urban renewal programme initially in the town of Portlaoise. For many years, we in Laois saw the benefits of certain inward investment in the adjoining counties of Kildare and Offaly. Unfortunately we in Laois were deprived of such benefit. While Portlaoise has reaped the benefits of urban renewal I welcome the fact that town renewal is coming to smaller towns.
Deputy Ó Caoláin said the Government had put the cart before the horse. I see this as an opportunity for small towns such as Mountmellick, Mountrath, Rathdowney and Portarlington to get away from the days of the horse and cart. This is the first time we have seen private interest in the smaller towns. While there are some flaws in the Bill, we must look at the role of the smaller community in the smaller town. It was difficult to hold small communities together by virtue of the fact that there is little private investment in those towns. This Bill will certainly provide the incentive for investment. For the first time in my 21 years as a member of a local authority I have watched with interest developers come into Mountmellick and recognise the possibility of investment in a small town. Taking Mountmellick as an example, it must auger well for the future of small towns.
I recognise that it will promote economic prosperity in small towns and will give them a new lease of life. That will be confirmed as the Bill clears the way for local investment. An important aspect of the Bill is that small towns will now become part of the local authority development plan. In other words it will give the local authority the incentive to instigate development plans for smaller towns. That in itself will encourage developers to prepare their plans for a five-year period, it will enhance the ability of those small towns to take advantage of the rapid change taking place in the economy and it help prevent smaller towns from becoming dormitory towns. Those who live in small rural areas will recognise the importance of the Bill.
The concepts have been tried and trusted in the larger urban areas and I believe revived derelict areas inject economic life into those towns. We shall also reap the benefits of learning from the mistakes of the larger towns when we come to develop those areas. We are aware of the enormous pressures on the planning departments and we must ensure sufficient staff is available in these departments to provide the necessary climate for the Bill to impact positively. The Minister is aware of this problem and is doing everything in his power to address it. There are serious backlogs in the planning departments.
I welcome the fact that the Minister is commissioning the national spatial strategy which will streamline the work carried out by planning departments. While the planning departments need extra staff there is also a need for clear guidelines which can only be given after well researched strategic thinking.
The local authority of which I am a member is carrying out extraordinary work under difficult conditions and particular credit must be given to the staff. As legislators, we must ensure that every possible assistance is given to them. A recent initiative which increases the size of a development before planning permission is required is an effective way to reduce the number of applications before the local authorities. Communities in smaller towns work hard to hold their communities together and to promote development to sustain a certain quality of life. I welcome the Bill because it gives this hard work and determination some real teeth when addressing the difficulties in applying experience in rural towns. It will encourage inward investment by making it attractive to establish a business and set up home in the designated towns. It will also provide a viable alternative to those who want to set up businesses in local rural areas. It will afford people the opportunity to make a living in their home town, thereby removing the necessity to commute to larger urban areas. Many facilities and services, including child care, are available and are not as stretched in towns such as Mountmellick where a purpose built child care facility is about to be developed by a local development association to meet the needs and demands.
I look forward to the possibility of investment in the small towns to sustain and retain the local communities.
This Bill seeks to address a decline in the core area of many smaller towns. This is in contrast with rapid development in some others, particularly in the county towns where the previous renewal scheme has been successful. Undoubtedly there have been other factors as mentioned by other speakers. Some people in the Department were concerned that some of the towns that might be designated now might not have had the critical mass to benefit from the scheme. There may be a case for putting more emphasis on housing rather than on commercial activity in some of these areas. It would be beneficial if that were the case. Sometimes the lack of development comes down to a lack of infrastructure. That issue is being addressed in many towns and many water and sewerage schemes are under way. In many instances local authorities and developers are co-operating to provide some of these services. Unfortunately, there are indications from speakers from various parts of the country that lack of progress is due to hold-ups in the planning process. In many instances the issue of planning is a negative force. It certainly impacts negatively on rural development, as has been mentioned by almost all speakers.
The success of this scheme will depend to a considerable extent on the residential incentives element. The scheme can make a huge impact in this regard if it is adventurous enough. In particular, there should be encouragement of residential development in smaller units in some of the towns.
There also has been confusion regarding the three hectare maximum area for inclusion under the scheme. There was a view that this was the maximum area for towns with populations of 6,000 and that it would be reduced proportionally for smaller towns. In theory that might have meant a town with a population of 600 would have had only one third of a hectare or a little more than half an acre designated. However, I understand a distinction is being drawn between refurbishment and new building. That was not clear to many local authority planners and senior county council officials at an earlier stage.
They were informed to some extent by experience under the last urban renewal scheme. Shannon was the qualifying town in County Clare and the modest proposals made by the county council were deemed excessive by the expert advisory panel which was in place at that time. The scheme originally submitted by the council could have had an enormous impact but the one finally adopted is so insignificant that it will be disappointing in terms of benefits. If the same criteria are applied to this scheme by the expert group, it will be an unmitigated disaster.
I compliment Clare County Council, the council about which I have most knowledge, on the quality of the plan it submitted for the towns under the scheme and for the level of consultation it achieved in a relatively short timescale. We regularly hear about lack of resources and manpower. However, when the local authority put its mind to it and had the co-operation of local communities, a huge amount of consultation was possible. The local communities were also not found wanting in terms of preparing plans and lobbying for the inclusion of their towns. One of the encouraging aspects was that they were led mainly by people who did not have a personal interest in properties but who had a vision for their town and wanted a say in its development.
It would be helpful if the Minister would indicate an intention to include all eligible towns for the duration of the scheme. There are several cases of towns being left off the list by narrow margins. I am thinking of towns such as Lisdoonvarna, which is the town in Clare most in need of the capital the scheme will generate. I am also thinking of Newmarket-on-Fergus which is due to be bypassed and might suffer as a result. The lower population level left out many towns which could benefit enormously from the scheme and some of which would meet the criteria if the most recent figures rather than the 1996 ones were used.
I was particularly impressed with the preparation of the plan in Ennistymon. The level of community involvement was great.
The Deputy's five minutes have concluded.
The Chair will spare me going through the list, which is a great pity.
I unequivocally support this Bill. Its provisions will enable small towns to be given a facelift. I am aware of the benefits of the rural renewal scheme in my constituency. It has been of great benefit to the towns of Tubbercurry and Ballymote. Among the few remaining areas in Sligo which were not included in the rural renewal scheme were the village of Ballaghy, which includes part of Charlestown in County Mayo, Strandhill and Rosses Point.
Strandhill and Rosses Point are seaside resorts and they will benefit greatly from this scheme. I recall the introduction of the seaside resort scheme by the former Minister, Deputy Kenny. Enniscrone was included in that scheme and it has benefited tremendously from it. A large number of new houses have been built and the num ber of visitors to the town has increased enormously.
The objective of this scheme is to improve the quality of life, services, amenities and employment opportunities for residents in small towns and villages. I compliment the Minister and the Ministers of State, Deputies Dempsey, Wallace and Molloy. In particular, I compliment Deputy Molloy on the flexibility and understanding he has shown in my constituency by making special provision for the inclusion of Ballaghy in conjunction with Charlestown in this scheme.
The young and energetic county councillor, Aiden Collery, made an excellent submission at a meeting I attended in Ballaghy. The village of Ballaghy has a population of less than 100. County Mayo had already filled its quota of towns for inclusion in the scheme and although Ballaghy is in County Sligo and Charlestown is in County Mayo the Minister found a means of including them. I sent Mr. Collery to meet Deputy Molloy in Galway and Mr. Molloy included the towns in the scheme. I thank him for doing that.
Deputy Dukes is listening to my contribution. I often thank him for the support he gave Fianna Fáil when it was a minority Government which resulted in this Celtic tiger. When former Deputies Ray McSharry and Charlie Haughey were on this side of the House, the Deputy helped them. There is no question about that.
Deputy Dukes will have to respond to that.
It was for Ray more than Charlie.
I thank the Deputy for it.
Ray was a good constituency colleague.
We welcome the improvements and development this Bill will generate in small towns and villages. People will be able and willing to live and work in their native areas. I mentioned Strandhill and Rosses Point earlier and they, too, will benefit from this legislation. My favourite beneficiary, however, is the little village of Ballaghy on the borders of Mayo. It has always been neglected but will now benefit a great deal from inclusion in the town renewal scheme. I am delighted about that and I am happy for the people of Ballaghy.
I wish to share my time with Deputy Joe Higgins.
Is that agreed? Agreed.
When considering legislation such as this it is important to examine the issue of planning. Planning cannot be about the short-term or ten years into the future. It must be about future generations and how it will impact on the community. It cannot be carried out in isolation but must be integrated and holistic.
Previous speakers have referred to the provision of child care, schools, infrastructure and so forth and I agree with their comments. When discussing legislation such as this, we must look at precedents, both the successes and the failures. I have direct experience of the docklands scheme which was heralded as progressive. However, it has not enhanced the community or benefited local people. There have been high rise developments and other development schemes, some of which were architecturally good and some quite inferior. Many people have moved into these new apartments but they have not integrated into the local community.
This Bill proposes refurbishment of residential accommodation which I fear could result in similar developments. The problem with the docklands and urban renewal in Dublin is that it did not enhance the local community because it did not encourage families to live in these areas. What we got was a transient population, people who moved into the area for a few years and moved out again. We need to take measures to ensure this does not occur under this scheme. What we are now getting is the development of what some people refer to as the tenements of the future. Populations are moving into the area and some are having their rents paid for by the local health boards. This has led to a certain resentment because large gates are erected around these developments and there is no integration whatsoever.
The local community which, in a sense, is under siege is trying to deal with local problems, yet the people who have moved into these developments are not participating in the community. They are enclosed and insulated. More people will come in from outside to the Ringsend, Pearse Street and docklands area and, therefore, the indigenous population will be outnumbered. That may seem like a very tribal notion but it is the reality. I hope we have learned from these mistakes and from the debacle in Courtown which Frank MacDonald has gone into in great detail.
It is interesting that we are debating this Bill on the day the ESRI released its quarterly report which deals with the notion of community. We need to get back to this. The report goes into some detail about what has happened in relation to developments outside of Dublin. Due to the escalation in house prices and rents, people are now going out to the towns to try to obtain cheaper accommodation. The outer suburbs of Dublin, including Dundalk and Gorey, have been mentioned. There have been huge developments in Rochfortbridge, County Westmeath, Bunclody, County Wexford and Castlecomer, County Kilkenny. These towns have all experienced huge housing developments.
Towns such as Navan, Drogheda, Carlow and Naas have also experienced huge development because the people who have moved into these areas cannot afford accommodation in Dublin. I had experience of this in Carlow where our party held its annual conference. I was told that there are a large number of estates on the outskirts of Carlow which has improved enormously. People are now commuting to Dublin from Carlow which is taking a big chunk out of their day. I believe nine buses are being provided by a private operator.
This situation has been allowed to get out of control and public transport or infrastructure has not been provided. Statistics in the Leinster area show a growth in new houses of 163% from 1994 to 1999. New car registrations for that period rose by 164%. Interestingly, in the Louth area, where there is a huge concentration of new developments, car registrations increased by 433%. This tells its own story because the Enterprise service from Dundalk, which is a very good service, increased by just 142%. This indicates an imbalance between car transport and public transport which needs to be addressed before proceeding with all this urban renewal. We need to get the first principles correct, which has not been the case up to now.
Sustainability is mentioned in this Bill and in the Planning and Development Bill. However, there is a fundamental contradiction here because one cannot have sustainable development if the infrastructure is not in place. Cearly that is the case in this country. If we continue along these lines, we have no hope of meeting our commitments under the Kyoto Agreement because CO2 emissions will increase. The M50 has already become clogged and all commuter routes will quickly become clogged up which is not sustainable. There will be gridlock not just in the cities and towns but on roads leading to and from these towns.
As a result of rented accommodation in these towns we will get owner-occupiers doing up their property and families moving in, but we could also get the phenomenon of the transient population moving into towns where there is little integration. We need to avoid that. I take the point made by previous speakers that local authorities are under-resourced and do not have the personnel to deal with planning issues. There should be holistic thinking and an integrated approach to this issue. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government needs to understand that there is now a crisis because we cannot keep people in the Civil Service or in local authorities. We need planners and people with expertise. These people are moving at the rate of knots to more lucrative employment.
I understand Deputy Dukes will be tabling an amendment which I will support. In relation to the ESRI report, it is clear that because of staffing shortages local authorities do not have the expertise and we are getting bad planning decisions. For example, the Department had to intervene where Meath County Council was proposing that Kilbride, with a population of 100, would now become a dormitory town with a population of 5,000. This is the type of incredibly unsustainable planning we need to avoid. I hope the Minister of State will take on board some of my points.
(Dublin West): I want to object strenuously to retrospective approval proposed in the Town Renewal Bill, 2000. It is unacceptable that the Government is proposing retrospective approval of decisions that have been already carried out, back dating them to February 1999. The Government is showing increasing contempt for public representatives elected to the Dáil who should have a bigger input into legislation. It is becoming a habit. Recently all Stages of the retrospective legislation validating the illegal refuse charges collected in the last three years were rammed through the House in one day. How it will stand up in the courts is a different matter but this should not be accepted as Government practice.
I agree in principle with the idea of encouraging development in smaller towns. There is no question that the manner in which planning has developed is unsustainable, with Dublin and other urban areas growing at a rate disproportionate to rural areas. Everyone who lives in Dublin is paying the price for that. It was late in the day before definitive action was taken to reverse that situation. Cramming more and more people, housing and traffic into the capital city area is a feature of countries which would be considered to be more backward in their economic and social development, not one of a supposedly modern capitalist society. It is critical, therefore, that definitive action is taken to create a situation where young people can stay in their own areas and find employment and accommodation. That would be balanced development and it is a principle everyone should accept.
The only engine for such development included in the Bill is tax designation of areas in chosen towns. That is far from sufficient and I am opposed to the way in which tax designation has been used in the past. As a minimum, there should have been a rigorous study of how tax designation has been used in towns under different schemes in the past. People in some seaside towns would say that the manner in which tax designation was operated – as a cover for speculators – has been destructive and counter-productive. The philosophy of this Fianna Fáil-PD Government is to throw more and more at the feet of the speculators, the land owners, the developers and the capitalists and rely on them to put into practice what should be social policy with investment from many different directions.
The speculation in land and housing this will encourage has been the scourge of ordinary people. In Dublin over recent years the Government has resolutely refused to cut out speculation and the obscene situation has arisen where speculators have priced working people on average to middle incomes out of the opportunity to purchase their own homes. People dependent on rented accommodation are increasingly seeing more and more of their incomes going into the pockets of the landlords and face great difficulties as a result. The Government resolutely refuses to tackle the small minority whose grasping and greed are creating such a crisis because they have been lavishly funded by those sections in the past. Are we to see now a replication of that in towns around the State?
Tax designation is the only concrete measure in this Bill. There are other aspirations but I guarantee that if the Government continues to give these lopsided privileges to one narrow sector of society at the expense of the other, the magnificent result of the independent socialist candidate, Séamus Healy, in Tipperary South will be the music of the future.
There are worthy aspirations in the Bill concerning how towns should be developed but the funding and commitment of resources, particularly in terms of local authorities, should be much more concrete. When the Government is sitting on such a huge surplus of funds, far more resources should be made available to local authorities for investment in these services.
Private institutions such as banks, the services of which are crucial for the economic and social life of communities, cannot be allowed to walk away from rural areas. They are shutting down their branches in sizeable towns, walking away and leaving people without a banking service. Many community groups have written to me to complain about banks which make huge profits, walking away from towns. They should not be allowed to do that; they should be compelled to have a social dimension to their operations and to stay in towns and villages which need their services.
Similarly, other services, such as post offices, must not be moved. In recent years this tendency to close services and rationalise in smaller towns has been very damaging to the fabric of communities. I equate it in its narrow mindedness and lack of vision to the closure during the 1950s of sections of the railway and railway spurs. I remember the spur between Tralee and Dingle being closed during my childhood. That railway would be hugely profitable if it was there today, attracting tourists and benefiting the environment. We cannot allow capitalism, red in tooth and claw to dominate. The interests of people and their communities must be put first.
The decentralisation of State services should tie in with town renewal but not decentralisation where each Minister makes a grab for some section of a Department under his or her control, like a rugby player going for a ball, and then races away with it into his or her constituency. That should not be permitted.
The spatial plan contained in the national development plan makes it crazy to talk about town renewal. We do not know what areas will be designated as growth centres in the spatial plan. Everything has been turned on its head by this Government.
The Deputy is beginning to agree with much of what we say.
(Dublin West): It is the Deputy's party which is beginning to agree with me.
If that is the case, Deputy Dukes should be put into a truss, taken out of this place and have his head examined.
It was interesting to listen for the last few minutes to ideology overcoming common sense. Long before I entered politics I travelled extensively to the east to what was then called behind the "Iron Curtain"—
(Dublin West): Oh God.
—where I saw the Stalinist dream to which Deputy Higgins referred. If one ever wanted to witness housing misery, it would be in the part of the world to which the Deputy referred in his eulogy.
(Dublin West): I was not eulogising, I was merely educating Deputy Dukes about Stalinism.
I listened with great patience to the Deputy's contribution and I ask him to show me the same courtesy.
If one analyses the contributions of the two previous speakers, it is astonishing to realise that intelligent people can be blinded by ideology.
Self-delusion.
Deputy Gormley decried what has happened in the Dublin docklands area, namely, that people have been encouraged to live in that part of the city. I had thought it would be a positive development to have people living in this area rather than having a huge doughnut of commuter belts surrounding the city.
On a point of order—
I do not believe the Deputy wishes to raise a point of order, I believe he wants to reiterate a point he made earlier.
I am quite knowledgeable about the Sheriff Street area because I lived on East Wall Road for a period. I witnessed the dereliction which plagued that area and the degradation experienced by the people who lived there in the 1960s and 1970s as a result of a lack of incentivisation.
Will Deputy Roche give way for a point of order?
I did not come to the House to—
Acting Chairman
I call Deputy Gormley on a point of order.
It is not a point of order.
It is a point of order. The point I was trying to make is that we want more families to move into the area and we are in favour of development.
I agree with Deputy Gormley's comments about wanting families to move into the area. However, the record will show that the last point he made is that there are families living in apartment blocks in the area who are being supported by the health services. I admire independent thinking but it is abhorrent that intelligent people's thinking can be clouded by ideology. However, we will have to continue this debate on another occasion because I must make my contribution on the Bill before us.
The urban renewal scheme from which a number of larger towns benefited in recent times was, undoubtedly, one of the most successful political innovations in the past 30 years. It gave towns which were badly affected by dereliction an inventive to improve their images. Any person who contests that view should visit some of the towns which were included under that scheme. People must be honest and admit that the scheme to which I refer was extremely effective. One of the most extraordinary things about the scheme was that it not only renewed the physical infrastructure and fabric of many towns, but it also highlighted the ingenuity, willingness and enterprise which exists in small communities.
I was born in the town of Wexford which suffered more than its fair share of economic distress in the past. All of the town's major industrial concerns were undermined or downsized in one way or another because they could not keep pace with changes in the world market. When I attended secondary school in the 1960s, the major concern of every young person in Wexford town was whether they would obtain employment there and, as a result, remain in the community. The majority of people, including myself, who sat the leaving certificate in the 1960s left the town to seek work in Dublin or joined the great diaspora which left the country during that period.
The urban renewal scheme helped to turn matters around in Wexford and other towns. More importantly, however, it helped to create a sense of confidence and pride among the members of many communities. I am not of the opinion that the scheme was a universal success. For example, two separate allocations were made to Bray under the urban renewal scheme but it did not develop in the same way as towns such as Ennis and Wexford where the relevant authorities were remarkably energetic in their use of the scheme.
One of the difficulties we face with any scheme of this nature lies in achieving a balance between housing and sustainable development and good and bad architecture and to avoid, as Deputy Higgins stated, repeating some of the nightmares which resulted from the seaside resorts scheme. I agree with the Deputy that the latter scheme went off the rails because it lacked proper focus.
The scheme outlined in the Town Renewal Bill does not lack the proper focus. I do not care that what we are attempting to achieve is retrospective. Such matters will not be a source of concern to the towns and communities that will benefit from the scheme. However, what will matter is the way in which the provisions of the Bill will be put into effect. In that context, the first paragraph of the explanatory memorandum stresses that there is a need to focus on revitalising small towns. Despite the fact that they are situated close to Dublin, many of the small towns in my constituency have not benefited from the major economic upturn because they lack a critical mass or a centre of focus or because incentives have simply sucked capital out of them and moved it elsewhere.
Many of the small towns in my constituency have suffered extraordinary dereliction. During the recent by-election campaign I spent time in Clonmel, which provides an extremely good example of what capitalist incentivisation can achieve. Clonmel is an extraordinary town and I am quite familiar with it because I visited it on many occasions when I was young. It is amazing to see how financial and taxation incentives can be extremely beneficial in terms of improving towns. The concept that we should focus on smaller towns, assist them to grow and develop and ensure they become commercial and social centres for the communities in their surrounding hinterlands is an ideal objective.
I am not suggesting the Bill is perfect in every regard and I am sure it will be improved by debate. However, the scheme outlined in the Bill, if it is applied imaginatively, will be of great benefit to small towns which have been left behind in the past ten or 15 years. There are many small towns in counties Wicklow and Kildare which, if they obtain the right type of incentives, will rise to the challenge and show their capacity to develop and improve.
One aim of the scheme is to ensure the towns to which I refer will become social and commercial centres, not dormitories. I am concerned about one aspect of the scheme. We must ensure a balance is achieved in this regard and that dormitory towns are not allowed to develop. Wicklow County Council has designated Baltinglass, Tinahely, Carnew, Dunlavin and Rathdrum for consideration by the Department of the Environment and Local Government. I ask the Department to accept local wisdom on this occasion, to apply, in principle and in spirit, the concept of subsidiarity, to accept that the local authority has submitted good schemes in respect of these towns and to avoid the centralist or l'état c'est moi attitude displayed by Departments which states that “We do it better than you can possibly do it out there in the sticks”.
There are elements of the schemes I would like to see improved. However, the towns in question were selected by Wicklow County Council following a long period of debate. I wish to refer to three towns in particular, namely, Baltinglass, Tinahely and Carnew, which are on the periphery of the greater Dublin commuter belt. Baltinglass, for example, is a thriving town but it has at its centre a great deal of dereliction and it would benefit immensely from the scheme. It is the kind of town where a mixture of residential and commercial development would help to form a critical mass and this, in turn, would help to underpin the centrality of that town for communities in the surrounding hinterland and assist it to regain some of its past splendours. A number of innovative proposals have been put forward by members of the community in Baltinglass. By and large, these have been incorporated with the unanimous approval of all sides in the county council.
The town of Baltinglass is a classic example of a small Irish town. It has a remarkable and long history. In the 12th century, it boasted two Members of the very first Irish Parliament and had two MPs up until the 18th century. In spite of its illustrious history, the town has been bypassed and there are pockets of dereliction within it which the scheme could help to remedy. The most significant point in Baltinglass's favour is that it already has a critical mass which could be expanded to build on the town's economic might and capacities. Towns such as Baltinglass, Tinahely, Carnew, Rathdrum and Dunlavin could become centres in their own rights rather than the mere commuter villages we witnessed in the 1970s.
Baltinglass fulfils all of the sustainable development criteria as do Tinahely and Carnew. I do not want to appear excessively parochial but Tinahely and Carnew are very important shopping centres and have a long history of interconnectedness with the surrounding rural hinterland and agricultural community. The towns also have within them small but significant central areas which, if they are to be renewed, require an incentive. Dunlavin, Rathnew and Rathdrum are well chosen as they are within the commuter belt and are beginning to feel the pressure of commuter building. When the departmental officials come to the stage of implementing the scheme, they will see that the local communities and the local authorities have invested a great deal of effort into choosing the areas for renewal.
There is a particular issue about which I am concerned in regard to the Bill. Irrespective of how laudable the scheme may be, real planning problems are beginning to be experienced in Wicklow, Kildare and Meath. I am sure Deputy Dukes will bear that out. Population dynamics have resulted in people being shoved out into these counties and we now have a planning crisis, certainly in County Wicklow. I appeal to the Minister and the Government to realise that the adventurous development proposed in this legislation can only be fulfilled if local authorities have the necessary planning staff. We do not have such staff in Wicklow and I am sure the same applies to other counties peripheral to Dublin.
The serious problem of planning capacity must be addressed. Otherwise, any development which comes on stream will be developer-led and will not have the social mix required to revitalise towns. In that situation, developments would be led by profit rather than community motives and that would fulfil the gloomy prognosis outlined by the two previous speakers, particularly Deputy Higgins who seems to believe that the red flag is about to be hoisted in every town and village in the country. God forbid.
We have a planning problem in the greater Dublin area. While there has been massive investment in infrastructure, we now need to invest in human capital. Local authorities, as currently structured, staffed and funded, are not capable of playing the necessary proactive role in this regard. We had to engage private consultants when the development plans for towns in County Wicklow were being drawn up and, to be fair to them, they did a very good job. When I see the planning chaos which faces us at every second and third Monday at planning meetings in County Wicklow, I am fearful that local authorities do not have the capacity to address the problem. We can pass all manner of Bills and introduce all manner of tax incentives but they will not have any effect unless we invest heavily in planning staff, particularly in the greater Dublin area.
When the schemes under this Bill come into operation, I urge the Department to ensure that shared ownership schemes, affordable housing initiatives and the 20% social housing requirement will be rigidly observed. In regard to some of the smaller towns and villages in County Wicklow – and I am sure this is true of Kildare and Meath too – there is a very real danger that single class ghettos will be built. I want to draw the Minister's attention to an appalling reality. In some of the smaller towns and villages which are regarded by investors as very desirable addresses, small estates are being built behind fences and gates. I hoped never to see that type of development occurring here. The last time I saw such development was in Dallas many years ago where small townships were built up behind gates on the outskirts of the city. People living in such developments cannot become part of an integrated, developed and balanced community in any sense.
This is an excellent scheme but the necessary human capital must be provided within local authorities in order for its objectives to be realised. I compliment the Minister and I certainly do not share Deputy Higgins's concerns that the Bill provides for a retrospective approval element. Obviously, from his point of view, it would be better if we did everything differently.
You could do it properly.
I will accept some degree of criticism. When one considers Deputy Higgins's—
Will the Deputy join me in criticising the Government?
At the end of the day, it is the small towns in Kildare and Wicklow which will benefit from this scheme if it is operated properly. It will not matter one whit to them whether some parliamentarian's toes were stepped on.
Fianna Fáil is still a slightly constitutional party; it has no regard for the law.
Clichés do not have any place in this debate. Deputy Dukes and I can debate history and his interpretation of history elsewhere. I compliment the Minister on the Bill—
This is where we should debate it, Deputy Roche. That is what we are here for.
This is a good Bill and I urge the Minister and the Department to ensure that when its provisions are implemented, the concept of subsidiarity will be observed and that councils such as Wicklow and Meath – Deputy Dukes can forget about Kildare after his last comment – will be provided with the necessary staff to implement the scheme.
I thank Deputies for their contributions to this debate. Tax incentive based renewal schemes focused on the improvement of urban and large environments have been in operation for some 14 years and we can safely say that their benefits are clear to all. The impact of successive urban renewal schemes on the transformation of the inner city areas of our larger towns and cities, blighted by dereliction and decay over many decades, is not in dispute.
There is now a well established consensus, which was reflected in the debate, that the schemes have been critically instrumental in kick-starting the process of attracting investment, underpinning the revitalisation of deprived areas and rebuilding communities. It is entirely appropriate that this tried and trusted approach should be applied, albeit in a different way, to our smaller towns to ensure they can exploit the potential on offer, in the process ensuring their attractiveness as places in which people can live and work into the future.
Deputy Dukes, whose contribution was in marked contrast to the more measured response of other Deputies, including one of his party colleagues, waxed cynical about the sustainability, spatial planning and integrated dimensions of the scheme outlined by the Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Molloy, when he introduced the Bill.
The standard definition of sustainable development which is used internationally describes it as development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. If that is not about people and catering for their needs, I do not know what is. Deputy Dukes could have taken the trouble to read the guidelines for the scheme and the document, Sustainable Development – A Strategy for Ireland, which was produced by the previous Government of which he was a Member. That document called for the continued development of policies to bring redundant and derelict sites and buildings back into active use. It also identified a more integrated approach to the physical, economic and social revitalisation of urban areas, flexibility in the application of planning policies to encourage a better mix of activities, encouraging the use of upper storeys for residential purposes, the conversion of outmoded buildings to new uses, making optimum use of existing infrastructural capacity and a partnership approach involving broad consultation.
There are also obvious benefits in the area of transport, energy conservation and dividends to be obtained from the promotion of living in revitalised towns where people can find employment and a place to live. Deputy Dukes can hardly complain if the policies contained in the document are now being integrated by the Government into programmes and schemes in line with that strategy.
If Deputy Dukes had taken the trouble to read the report on the scope and delivery of the national spatial strategy published by my Department recently and circulated to all Members of the House, he might have demonstrated better understanding of the strategy's objectives and the range of challenges and issues it will address.
Within its overall objective of promoting balanced regional development, the national spatial strategy will identify where balance and sustainable urban growth are feasible. It will also set out a basis for the future development of small urban centres with links to major urban centres and rural hinterlands. The strategy will also offer a development strategy which seeks to create positive linkages between town and country and promote self-sustaining rural and village communities. It will be built on the premise that all our cities, towns, villages and rural areas must be given equality of opportunity to reach their potential in terms of economic, social and cultural development. In that context, we should welcome an initiative such as the town renewal scheme which is specifically aimed at enhancing the future economic and social role of many small towns throughout the country. The national spatial strategy and town renewal scheme share many objectives. I cannot agree that proceeding to implement the scheme now is prejudicial to the outcome of the spatial strategy.
I was taken aback by Deputy Dukes's onslaught on the arrangements which have been made for extensive participation in the preparation of the national spatial strategy by local and regional authorities, community groups, social partners, Departments, semi-State bodies, sectoral interests and individual citizens. I see widespread participation at the various stages of the strategy's preparation as being of central importance in ensuring that the strategy is relevant to people's real needs. Developing a high degree of ownership among the various interests affected by spatial planning initiatives is also vital to the strategy's successful completion and implementation. The strategy has the potential profoundly to alter the way Ireland develops over the next 20 years. It is only right, therefore, in an era of social partnership that as many people, groups and organisations as possible should be given an opportunity to make a contribution to its preparation.
Deputy Dukes is also wide of the mark in his comments on housing output and his comments reflected a misunderstanding as to how the tax incentive system will operate. The scheme follows a similar model to that adopted for the urban renewal scheme which was initiated by the previous Government. The guidelines for the scheme are heavily focused on refurbishment of existing buildings, which should produce a significant contribution to housing supply. In terms of the number of towns benefiting, this is the broadest based tax incentive scheme to date. Tax incentives will not be applied willy-nilly across the entire area covered by a town renewal plan, rather will they be targeted at the areas and buildings of greatest need and potential. As in the case of the urban renewal scheme, these targeted sites will act as catalysts, encouraging investment in derelict areas of the designated towns.
Focusing on the cost to the Exchequer of the scheme, as Deputy Dukes has done, paints a distorted picture. The designations announced under the current urban renewal scheme were entirely based on the recommendations of local authorities as modified by the expert panel. Deputy Dukes's exaggerated description of the role of the Minister for Finance should be seen against this background. It is appropriate that the main focus, both in selecting towns and making recommendations, should rest with county councils. Under the reformed local government system, county councils have a pivotal role in developing their areas. County councils are sometimes criticised for not behaving responsibly. To act responsibly one must be given responsibility and I know county councils rose to this challenge exceptionally well, as Deputy Penrose pointed out in relation to his own county.
A total of 223 eligible towns were identified. County councils were then required to select the towns for which town renewal plans were to be prepared under the first phase of the scheme. This selection process was carried out by reference to a formula based on a number of eligible towns in the county. This resulted in the selection of 102 towns and plans have been submitted for these. The guidelines make it clear that the scheme will run for three years and consideration will be given to extending it to other eligible towns in future phases of the scheme.
Deputies made valid points concerning the dangers of uniformity and repetitiveness in planning design, street furniture and so on. The scheme is expressly designed to restore, consolidate and improve the built fabric of the targeted towns. The preparation of a town renewal plan is specifically required to be prepared having regard to the unique historical, social and architectural character of the individual town and its geographical context. Detailed guidance on the essential elements of townscape have been provided to assist planners in this task.
In the context of guiding public taste, Deputies will be aware of the national tidy towns competition administered by my Department and its significance in small towns the length and breadth of Ireland. The competition is regarded as a conduit for values relating to the built and natural environments and competitors are provided with detailed advice on the importance of relying on the unique features of their own circumstances rather than slavishly adopting external solutions, whether in plantings, shop fronts or street furniture. As confidence is built up in the native heritage, I am confident this will be reflected in the design features of our urban landscape.
Town renewal plans have been prepared in the context of the proper planning and development of the areas in question. The guidelines issued on this specified that plans would be expected to address established built-up areas which the statutory development plan had identified as obsolete, derelict or in need of rejuvenation. I expect that the preparation of plans will have been undertaken in the context of the local area plans.
Deputies referred to the sense of uncertainty that may arise given the need to seek EU approval for a portion of the incentives. There is no uncertainty with regard to any of the incentives for residential development as these are not subject to EU approval. With regard to commercial incentives, they will have to be approved by the EU Commission. Having regard to the fact that the commercial incentives proposed are similar to those which the EU Commission has approved for the current urban renewal scheme, I am confident they will be accepted by the Commission. As was the case with the urban renewal scheme, we intend to announce the designations next month and proceed with the implementation of the residential incentives initially. The introduction of the commercial incentives will be deferred until the necessary EU approval is obtained. Legislative provision for the various incentives is contained in this year's Finance Act.
The expert advisory panel comprises seven members and is made up of people with relevant expertise and experience. The role of the panel is similar to that which operated for the urban renewal scheme. It is our intention to publicise the minutes of the expert panel meetings together with their report when the designations are announced next month. We want the panel's deliberations to be carried out in a transparent manner, as happened with the urban renewal scheme where all of this information was posted on the Department's website on the day of the announcement, an initiative which was widely welcomed at the time.
With regard to Deputy Naughten's comments on Monksland, this land is within the urban area of Athlone which is already benefiting under the urban renewal scheme and would not qualify for inclusion in the new scheme. I note the Deputy's point on residential density. If properly implemented, the residential guidelines will deliver an increased supply of housing from existing land and infrastructure. I agree that quality design is vital in the context of increased density and I am anxious to ensure the best possible design is applied in implementing these guidelines.
Deputy Ulick Burke referred to restrictions placed on planning applications. The process of drawing up and adopting a development plan is a transparent process open to comments from interested parties. Our courthouses and many other publicly owned buildings are not targeted under this renewal scheme which is a tax incentive scheme where construction and refurbishment costs are offset against tax liability. A wide range of conservation measures are in place to ensure conservation of our built heritage. Many privately owned buildings are included for designation in the plans submitted and the scheme will make a major contribution to conservation.
Deputy Brendan Daly referred to rates remission. There is nothing sinister in this. EU approval is required for all non-residential incentives. Difficulties arose with the EU Commission relating to the application of two reliefs which are operated in the Custom House docks areas and under previous urban renewal schemes. These incentives were the double rent allowance and the rates remission. The EU Commission regards these incentives as operating State aids and contrary to EU treaty laws on trade between member states. As a result of the EU decision in relation to these, the incentives that have been discontinued impact on the provisions in the existing urban renewal legislation, which could not be implemented.
I thank all the contributors to this debate. When we announced our intention to introduce this new scheme, we came under considerable pressure to get the scheme up and running as quickly as possible. We are all anxious to get it under way and I am satisfied the approach taken was sensible and pragmatic in the overall circumstances. That was the basis for proceeding as we did in advance of the legislation being passed. There are plenty of precedents for our actions. I emphasise the potential of this scheme to bring about significant changes and improvements, not just for the communities in the targeted towns but for the community as a whole. The process of examining the plans is now well advanced and we hope to announce the designations next month.
Question put and agreed to.