Deputy Ó Fearghaíl's last sentence echoes my opinion. A doctrinaire approach is the least likely to be successful. The planning system should always be moderated by a modicum of common sense, which is often unavailable. It should be laced with a little humanity. To take up a point raised by Deputy Ferris, I wrote some specific items into the planning guidelines, including one for returning emigrants. People were driven out of this country by economic circumstances in the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. They had nowhere to go but the emigrant boat and now, coming towards the end of their lives they want to return to their home place. For the first time the planning guidelines recognise that they have a special position and are going to bring something back. The country that could not support them in their youth can at least welcome them in their autumn years.
I made a specific reference to planners using discretion when dealing with a family that faces difficulties. In the by-election in the Chairman's constituency, Councillor Nick Killeen, who does extraordinary work with a disability group, brought me to meet a young couple who had two children suffering from autism. They could not get planning permission in the countryside although an uncle of one of them had decided to give a site. They did not meet the then criteria. I spoke to the Chairman, councillors and Members from other political parties and they all endorsed what I did. I wrote into the guidelines that special consideration must be given for those cases. The guidelines refer to an exception of health circumstance.
I have said several times that I do not like sterilisation agreements and they should be the exception rather than the rule. I have contrasted the approach as it has been adopted in a number of councils and that can be taken further with the CCMA. I dislike sterilisation agreements because they are reflected in the title deeds and become a burdensome legal issue. They can be problematic for families when somebody passes away or, as Deputy Wilkinson said, in the case of a split farm when somebody wants to come into an area and farm. That is why I have said they should be used with discretion.
Deputy Hoctor raised a number of interesting points. There is a specific reference in the guidelines to people working full time or part time in rural areas. It says such circumstances will normally encompass persons involved in full-time farming, forestry, inland waterways or marine-related occupations as well as part-time occupations where the predominant occupation is farming or natural resource related. Such circumstances should also encompass persons whose work is intrinsically linked to rural areas such as teachers or other persons whose work predominantly takes them into rural areas. If Deputies or Senators had difficulties in their councils they could draw that reference to the attention of planning officials because it required people to show common sense. One cannot prescribe a common sense approach in legislation but one can, as I have done in these guidelines, nudge people in the direction of it.
I am working backwards towards Deputy Carty. Deputy Wilkinson raised a number of issues, one of which was also raised by Deputy Carty. The planning system has never facilitated the sale of parts of land on economic considerations. As a councillor I tended not to support the use of the former section 4. I felt negotiations were better because section 4 was open to abuse. At one point we had 104 section 4 cases in County Wicklow, which looked like abuse and brought the planning system and the councillors into disrepute. I remember a section 4 case in which every councillor in the chamber supported it. One councillor said the reason the poor woman was applying for planning permission was because she needed money and had to sell the site, but the county manager could not sign it because the planning system is not intended to allow for that approach. Planning is planning and I am not in favour of introducing a system that would allow side farming, which is what we are discussing.
If people have genuine cases, for example, sons or daughters who want to live in that area, they should be facilitated. However, living there only to get planning permission and then selling the land is not an honest use of the argument of local occupation. The purpose of the guidelines I introduced was to do what it says on the can, to give people who will enrich the countryside, sons and daughters, the right to come into the countryside, not to foster speculative development. I made the point in reference to Deputy Ferris. Getting the balance right is not easy, but it is important. Using planning guidelines as a Trojan horse through which speculative development can take place would be a disservice to the countryside and to young people who want to live and rear their children where they were reared. We must protect against that.
Deputy Wilkinson mentioned An Bord Pleanála, which has taken on the planning guidelines well. I did a quick survey the first year after the guidelines were published in draft form and the number of one-off planning cases that were successful in seeking an appeal in 2004 went up to 70%. The corresponding figure in 2003 was only 4%. That is a dramatic increase. Some object to that, and one environmental correspondent regularly excoriates me. He sees this as the end of civilisation as we know it because as he is chauffeur driven through the countryside his view is occasionally spoiled by the dreadful sight of a bungalow in which a young family lives. That is a good application of the guidelines, however we all have taste differences.
To respond to Deputy Carty, I am anxious that we do not have side farming and that we have high-quality development in rural areas, specifically development for rural people who were born and reared in the countryside. We must be careful about side farming. The occupancy clauses are, and should be, used to facilitate giving people planning. We provided an occupancy clause in this instance because it is a sign that these are bona fide people. That point was made by Deputy Ó Fearghaíl.
Deputy Hoctor mentioned septic tanks, and a proliferation of them can cause water contamination. We are making a difficult decision on water contamination from nitrates and it is important that we also make decisions on contamination arising from septic tanks. I was taken by a number of arguments by Deputies and Senators from across the political spectrum on this recently. I travelled to Waterford to see an extensive system of using wetlands and reed beds in rural areas, which struck me. As Deputy Wilkinson knows, in the village of Kilmeadan there is reed bed system used for the cheese plant. Shortly after the plant opened there was a large spill of milk, which is very contaminating if it gets into the water. Within two weeks the whole system was cleaned by the reed beds.
In Annaville, just below Kilmeadan, reed beds are used extensively. My Department is working on guidelines for their use because they are an environmentally friendly, low-cost and relatively low-tech approach to clusters of housing in rural areas. We are returning to Deputy Naughten's earlier contribution that it would not be sensible or safe to argue that taxpayers should put in a treatment plant but this type of treatment is relatively low-cost and has a series of environmental positives. For example, following the installation of reed beds in Waterford, fish appeared in the river for the first time, such was the extent to which it had been cleaned up. I call for some imagination to be shown.
Deputy Hoctor is correct that there has been, in some cases, a rather doctrinaire attitude to puraflow and other such initiatives. We should have a more open attitude to new systems and technologies, provided they are not fly by night, which I know the Deputy is not suggesting. I draw the attention of members to the references on page 24 to special cases such as teachers in rural areas.
