JOINT COMMITTEE ON THE ENVIRONMENT, HERITAGE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENT debate -
Tuesday, 2 Dec 2008

Business of Joint Committee.

Chairman

The minutes of the meeting of 25 November 2008 have been circulated. Are the minutes agreed? Agreed.

The next issue is correspondence received by the committee and circulated since the last meeting. The first item is a report on the register of electors sent by the Irish Direct Marketing Association which is seeking to make a presentation regarding the use of direct mail in terms of the voter register. I suggest we refer the correspondence to the Department because we will be waiting for the Department to bring forward proposals on electoral matters. We will have to wait and see the colour of those proposals. It will be a long time before the proposals come back to the committee so it would be premature for us to hold a discussion on the use of this facility. I suggest we forward the correspondence to the relevant people in the Department who will be drafting any legislation on this matter.

Deputy Ciáran Lynch

The Chairman's view is correct. This committee has done an extensive amount of work on this issue. We have brought the process as far as we can at this stage and we are awaiting a response from the Department.

Chairman

So it is over to the Department. Is that agreed? Agreed.

The next item is a guidelines booklet on disputes resolution, risk and procedures assessments in local authorities. We deferred this issue from the last meeting as it is a substantial document from the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. Does any member wish to comment or hold the matter over?

Deputy Michael Fitzpatrick

I would like to defer that until the next meeting. The local government auditor will not appear before us until after Christmas and we therefore have some time on our hands.

Chairman

We will defer it and include it in the correspondence for the meeting that is to be brought to the attention of the local government auditor. I hope that will be in January.

No. 285 is a newsletter from GLOBE Europe, a think-tank on environmental policy. Is it noted? Noted.

The next item concerns the Mayo county development plan. A letter was received from Councillor Paddy McGuinness on follow-up issues and clarification regarding the debate on the Mayo county development plan on 4 November 2008. I understand we requested at the last meeting that the Department officials would meet the elected members of Mayo County Council. This has been agreed by them and they will meet a delegation of elected members. We will ask them to apprise us of the outcome. I am not suggesting there has been a change in the directive but it is good that the councillors are to have discussions with the officials, who are most familiar therewith.

Deputy Johnny Brady

There is a matter I want to raise regarding county development plans and area development plans. Perhaps this is not the appropriate time to raise it but the matter is urgent. Is the Chairman taking other business before bringing in the delegation?

Chairman

If it concerns planning, I will allow it now.

Deputy Johnny Brady

It does. In County Meath the county council is employing consultants to create the development plans and area action plans and, at the same time, it is letting go temporarily employed planners, some of whom are from the county, which is very sad at a time in which it is very difficult to get work in this area. It is outrageous that the county council should make the planners redundant, irrespective of whether they are in temporary employment. This should not be tolerated and I suggest that we ask the Minister to investigate it. I am sure it is happening right across the country.

Chairman

The key issue is that the local authorities have been told to achieve a 3% reduction. The simplest way for managers to do so is to let go all temporary staff, no matter how critical they are. On doing so, they employ consultants to do the work.

Deputy Johnny Brady

It is not good enough.

Deputy Christy O’Sullivan

Am I to understand the consultants are doing the work of the planners? Are they doing all the planning or just some?

Chairman

Area planning.

Deputy Johnny Brady

Drafting county development plans.

Chairman

In County Laois, the planning section did the work. Some county councils hire consultants to produce the draft development plan while others do the work in-house. Deputy Brady is asking why in-house staff should be let go if consultants are to be hired at a greater cost.

Deputy Johnny Brady

In my time as a member of the council, the work was always done in-house. There is now a new approach. Letting these young people go, particularly at present, is unfortunate. There is no work for them and they have just qualified as planners. They will not find work unless they go to Australia or somewhere, but they cannot all go there.

Deputy Michael Fitzpatrick

In fairness to the Minister, it was not his intention that the aforementioned approach would be taken. Deputy Brady is talking about retaining the people working for the council. In one case, a local authority employed consultants to investigate how it would allocate community gain to local communities. This should have been done by the officials and public representatives from the area. The capacity to employ consultants is being abused by local authorities and people at the top of those organisations. They should make the decisions. They want to bring in consultants so they can blame them for the decisions made. What Deputy Brady is saying is correct. We should communicate with the Minister on it. In these times, during which the Government is reducing the number of consultants employed, it is up to local authorities to do the same.

Chairman

We will agree to send a letter. I understand the point exactly. It sometimes represents a short-cut approach by a county manger to let temporary staff go. They sometimes do very important work.

In my county, there are temporary staff employed specifically to address water leaks. A project team was hired for this purpose and it is saving the local authority and the State a fortune. However, the team must be let go because they are on a temporary contact. The point is well made.

No. 286 is basically a letter of thanks from the councillors. Several members of the committee received similar letters of clarification. We will take these into account when drafting a report.

No. 287 is correspondence from Kevin Thorpe Limited, Newtown, Adamstown, County Wexford. We had a version of it at the previous meeting. The same correspondence has been received from Deputy Tuffy. Mr. Thorpe is asking that the period for which planning permission is applicable be extended to more than five years because work has not commenced due to economic circumstances. It would be good to retain value sites. The Minister responded to Mr. Thorpe on 13 November stating that the five-year provision is adequate. He has no proposal to amend legislation in this regard.

I have received related correspondence but it is not on the schedule. It refers to a recent decision by the European Court of Justice on the Derrybrien wind farm case in Galway, that is, C-215/06. The decision was that local authorities shall not accept any application for a retention of planning permission in cases where the planning permission would require an environmental impact assessment in the first place. I refer to large, unauthorised developments, mainly quarries and sandpits. There is a desire to regularise the situation and local authorities have received direction from the Department this summer stating that they shall return applications in respect of such developments as invalid since they are not in accordance with the ruling of the European Court of Justice.

I want the Minister to clarify this because I have seen correspondence he has issued on the matter in which he states that he will draft legislation to deal with the matter. I hope it is not to the disadvantage of businesses in Ireland by comparison with those in Europe. The Minister states in the correspondence that he is considering extending the five-year period to a seven-year period. If there is an unauthorised development on which a local authority does not act within five years, it has no authority to follow up on it thereafter. The Minister is talking about extending this whereas in the correspondence he states that he has no intention to extend the period for which planning permission applies. His statements are the opposite sides of the same coin. We might ask the Department to clarify this by way of correspondence because people will hear about it as time goes on.

Deputy Johnny Brady

Can the Chairman enlighten us on his statement on the five-year and seven-year periods?

Chairman

Is the Deputy referring to unauthorised developments?

Deputy Johnny Brady

Yes.

Chairman

If there is a development without planning permission and the local authority does not take action thereon within five years, it is legally barred from pursuing the developer thereafter. Simply put, if one gets away with not having planning permission for five years, one is scot free and the local authority cannot pursue one. This does not mean a planning problem will not arise when one attempts to sell the property in question.

Chairman

There was a letter to the Minister seeking that the period for which planning permission applies be extended from five to seven years but the Minister is refusing the request. He is in favour of extending the period for which a local authority can pursue those responsible for an unauthorised development. Perhaps he is correct in this regard.

Deputy Johnny Brady

Is it a question of a ministerial order or legislation?

Chairman

I have seen correspondence by the Minister arising from the decision of the European Court of Justice. When this decision came from the European Court of Justice this summer, the Government had to respond to it. In that correspondence he points out that he is looking at extending the period — and that would be by way of legislation to be enacted next year. It has yet to be done, but his intention in that regard is laid out in the correspondence.

Deputy Christy O’Sullivan

He also indicates in the letter here that there can be an extension of the time, where a substantial amount of work has been carried out.

Chairman

That is always the way.

Deputy Christy O’Sullivan

This is another grey area in planning regarding the local authority. What is a substantial amount of development? Is it at the wall plate level or when the roof is on?

Chairman

It is when the roof is on, as they say in my part of the country.

Deputy Christy O’Sullivan

We should get clarification on that point, because it is causing a good deal of concern.

Chairman

We shall ask the Minister for clarification as to what he means by a substantial amount of work.

Deputy Johnny Brady

I understood that it used to be wall plate level, but I believe that has all changed and now the roof must be on.

Chairman

There are probably different practices in the various local authorities.

Deputy Christy O’Sullivan

I was talking about extending planning permissions from five to seven years. I regularly come across cases where people are not financially equipped to carry out a project within the five-year period. For major developments, I believe five years is plenty of time. Otherwise people tend to sit on them. I can see this being of immense help, however, to people trying to build one-off houses. There are serious financial considerations. It costs about €10,000 or €12,000 now for one-off planning, and that is a good deal of money for, say, a young couple trying to start off in life. I would welcome some comment on that.

Deputy Michael Fitzpatrick

There was definitely a good reason to extend the planning permission during a boom time as some people, especially those with individual houses, were finding it hard to complete because of the costs contractors were charging to build them. I know of a number of cases where people had progressed almost to roof level, reapplied for planning permission and then somebody objected. One house, quite close to the Naas dual carriageway, is an eyesore for everyone to see. It has been there for a number of years, and people are objecting to it now. That man should have been given a few months to finish it off, but was not. I see merit in extending permission when there is pressure to get houses built.

Did I not read somewhere that there is a recommendation that structures are to be demolished if the council determines they are invalid? There are quite a number of such unauthorised developments for which environmental impact statements are currently being done. It is sad that some very valuable properties will have to be knocked down. While I do not condone people doing things illegally, I believe there should be a lead in period before this Act is brought in.

Chairman

We are talking about retention applications of a scale that requires an environmental impact assessment. Smaller ones below that level are not affected.

Deputy Michael Fitzpatrick

At the moment it is being done.

Chairman

In fairness to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, this whole matter arose from a decision of the European Court of Justice. The court brought down the guillotine on that matter by its decision earlier this year. The Department is now responding to that decision by the European Court of Justice. I do not believe some people saw it coming. It was argued that if a development requires an environmental impact assessment and somebody has proceeded to build without planning permission, it is too late to have an environmental impact assessment because, in effect, the environment has already been changed by the unauthorised development. It is a logical point, but people will be caught in the transition period. The Department is to draft legislation, which I presume will come before the Oireachtas next year.

In the meantime, until the new legislation is in place, local authorities have received a circular saying they are to return as invalid all applications for retention involving EIAs, notwithstanding the fact that the buildings are in place and people are only trying to regularise the position. That is the current situation.

Deputy Michael Fitzpatrick

However, planning files currently being processed have gone past the period by which they could have been invalidated. I should hope that such decisions will not be affected by the judgment of the European Court of Justice.

Chairman

I can circulate this and will ask the clerk to get the Minister's comments on the circular. The point the Deputy makes is specifically covered in the circular issued to local authorities in September or October.

The next item of correspondence is No. 288, a newsletter about European water partnership. This is noted.

Regarding the last letter from Mr. Kevin Thorpe in relation to his request for an extension, we said we would consider it as part of the planning legislation due to come forward next year. It will be dealt with in the context of new planning legislation.

Item No. 289 is a Globe International newsletter, which is noted.

Item No. 290 is about the Mayo county development plan. It is from the spatial section of the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and comprises replies to queries raised with Mayo County Council. I suggest there is one serious issue in that correspondence, which should be brought to members' attention. One thing was news to me, although not perhaps to other people. This circular says the Minister has the power to appoint a commissioner over all planning matters in a county if he or she is satisfied that conditions warrant this. I was not aware that a Minister, under section 255 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, is empowered to appoint a commissioner to carry out the planning functions. I did not know that power existed, although obviously it does. It means that the Minister can appoint a commissioner to any planning department to carry out all or any of its functions. We shall ask for clarification as to whether this section has ever been implemented, because the Mayo councillors raised a query as to whether their planning department could be abolished. Inadvertently, through lack of knowledge, I gave the wrong answer to the effect that I did not believe so. It now transpires that I was wrong.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

Was that ever implemented in the Dáil?

Chairman

I said that I had inadvertently given the wrong information, due to lack of information. One learns something new every day. It is a good day when one learns something new. We shall ask whether that has ever been implemented, because these are very strong powers for the Minister to have.

On a final point of clarification, I want to read this paragraph into the letter. It is from Mr. David Walsh, principal officer in the spatial planning section, dealing with his appearance before the committee. He felt some comments were made that he wants corrected on the record. He wrote:

On a final point of clarification it was commented during the opening statement by the Mayo County Council delegation that I had misled the committee by stating that Department officials had not met Mayo County Council officials after the ministerial direction was issued — and that they had evidence that this was not the case, and that a meeting had actually taken place after the plan was adopted.

Having reviewed my own records, I confirm that the only meeting that took place between senior Department officials, including myself, and the Mayo planning section or director of services and senior planner was on 25 February, in advance of the closing date for submission of comments on the amended draft plan, and well in advance of the adoption of the county development plan, on 8 May 2008.

Therefore, I would appreciate if you could ensure that the committee records reflect this and that the statement by the Mayo delegation is corrected.

I trust this answers the query.

In fairness, the officials from the Department want that read into the record.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

It is a good job that this has been corrected and that we know precisely that they did meet some of the people concerned.

Chairman

In advance.

Deputy Pádraic McCormack

Yes, in advance. What is the current situation regarding the deliberations involving the Mayo County Council delegation that was here?

Chairman

The Department officials have agreed to meet with a representative delegation of Mayo county councillors. We shall just cover that in the correspondence. That is a worthwhile development. There will be direct communication and that is worthwhile, but I wanted to correct the record on that, in fairness to the Department official. I cannot delete what the other gentleman said, who was part of the delegation, but at least I am putting that on the record. I believe that is the end of correspondence.

The following circulars were also circulated to members, which we have noted. Circular WPR20.8 refers to an electrical waste and electronic equipment subvention for the two six-month periods, July-December 2007 and January-June 2008 and circular F-26 of 2008 refers to statistics and the draft register of electors for 2009-10.

Before we finish with correspondence, a draft report has been circulated on the visit by a delegation of the joint committee to the annual winter seminar of the Local Authority Members Association last week in Castlebar. I thank Senators Coffey and Glynn for representing the committee. Is it agreed to approve the draft report and lay it before the Houses of the Oireachtas? Agreed.