We adjourned the last meeting after discussion of amendment No. 65 and related amendments Nos. 106, 196, 256, 377, 394 and 531. How stands amendment No. 65?
Planning and Development Bill, 1999 [Seanad]: Committee Stage (Resumed).
Debate resumed on the following amendment:
In page 26, subsection (2)(b), line 21, after “statement” to insert “or linguistic impact statement”.
-(Deputy Gilmore).
The amendment is being pressed.
At the last meeting the Minister expressed doubt as to whether there was such a thing as a linguistic impact statement and wondered if there were examples of such statements. The Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands has a guideline document which it gives to planning authorities in relation to linguistic matters for planning applications submitted under the present regime.
Linguistic impact statements are used in Wales in the planning process and I understand that examples of these have been submitted to the Minister. I appreciate that they were only submitted recently but has he had the opportunity to consider them and, in light of these examples, is he willing to give further consideration to the concept of introducing linguistic impact statements along the lines we discussed at the last meeting?
I understand that a submission was made, or a document was handed in, by Comhdháil Náisiúnta na Gaeilge at lunchtime today. I certainly have not had time to look at it. It is not a linguistic impact statement or an explanation as to what it is - a questionnaire that might add to the requirements of a person applying for planning permission in a Gaeltacht area. I am making these remarks having seen it literally for the first time just now. As with all the submissions that were made concerning protection of the Gaeltacht in the Bill, we will also consider this submission carefully, in addition to anything else that comes in up to Report Stage. However, on the basis of what I have received, I would not be able to give any kind of considered opinion. As the Deputy has asked me, however, I will undertake to consider the matter which can be taken up again on Report Stage.
Galway County Council has a system whereby in high amenity areas, which is practically all of our Gaeltacht areas, natives of the area - in other words native Irish speakers - get preference for planning permission over people who work in Galway city and dilute the Gaeltacht population because they wish to build out by the sea in Barna, Spiddal or further out. Would the native Irish speaker in the Gaeltacht area be taken into consideration in the planning legislation? I do not know whether that can be incorporated into the Bill. An Bord Pleanála does not take it into consideration when dealing with appeals, but the local authority does so in its county development plan. A case can be made for planning permission for second family dwellings for natives of the Gaeltacht working in the Gaeltacht, even in Gaeltacht amenity areas, if they are working and living there as native Irish speakers. That is done to preserve the native Irish speaking culture in the Gaeltacht rather than anybody being in a position to build a house in a Gaeltacht area - for example, English speaking people working in Galway city.
Deputy McCormack's remarks are helpful. He has reiterated my initial reaction to the concept of trying to preserve the Gaeltacht and the problem that arises from small or large scale developments that have the effect, directly or indirectly, of diluting the culture and language of Gaeltacht areas. As I said at the outset, and subject to what I receive between now and Report Stage, the best place for this matter to be dealt with is in specific policies laid out in county development plans, as Galway County Council has done. However, I think it is the only local authority to have done so. I understand that Meath County Council is in contact with Galway County Council concerning the insertion of such provisions in the current draft of Meath's county development plan. The Deputy raises the point as to whether An Bord Pleanála will take this matter into account. To my knowledge, on at least two occasions An Bord Pleanála has refused planning permission in Gaeltacht areas because of the impact the developments would have. One of them was an industrial development and the other involved the construction of holiday homes. Both were refused and one of the reasons for refusal was the effect it would have on the language and culture of the particular area. Therefore, it is possible to afford such protection to Gaeltacht areas. My initial position was that I thought I had gone as far as I could in giving recognition to the Irish language and the Gaeltacht areas and their culture in the Bill as it passed through the Seanad. My current view is that the best place to give effect to this is in county development plans and in the policies outlined in those plans, which are supposed to be controlled by each local authority.
We had a good discussion on this matter the last day and I do not wish to repeat what I said then. However, a commission has been established, one of whose remits is to examine the Bill and the recommendations as to how the protection we are outlining in the Bill can be translated into action on the ground, once the legislation is enacted. That is as far as I can go at the moment and, subject to the submissions I will receive up to Report Stage, I do not propose to move from that position.
It is time to put the question, Chairman.
Amendment put and declared lost.
Amendments Nos. 66 and 242 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 66:
In page 26, subsection (2)(c), line 27, after “licence” to insert “or an effluent discharge licence”.
This amendment is to section 7(2)(c) which deals with a number of matters that shall be entered in the planning register. This particular subsection concerns cases where an environmental impact statement was submitted. It refers to activities that require an integrated pollution control licence or a waste licence. I am proposing that we should insert a reference to an effluent discharge licence. The Environmental Protection Agency does not require effluent discharge licences but the planning authority does. However, for the purposes of the register and for the benefit of those who will need to consult the register subsequently to find out what was involved in a particular development, we should insert a record of an effluent discharge licence. There are some vagaries in the practice of requiring people to get effluent discharge licences but, since they are there, we should refer to them in the register.
The first of these amendments would require that in the case of developments which require an EIA, the planning register would state if an effluent discharge licence was required for the development. There is no definition in the Bill of an effluent discharge licence but I presume the Deputy is referring to licences issued under the Local Government (Water Pollution) Acts. I have no objection to considering that in principle. If the Deputy withdraws the amendment I will examine the matter further on Report Stage.
I must also ask the Deputy to withdraw the second amendment to section 34 because it would require the planning authority to have regard, when dealing with a planning application, to the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency is charged with issuing effluent discharge licences. However, that is not necessarily always the case. If the EPA issues a discharge licence it is called an IPC licence, as the Deputy said. That is already referred to in this section. Otherwise, such discharge licences are issued by the local authority, in which case the reference to the licence being a function of the EPA is erroneous. For that reason I cannot accept the amendment. There is a certain amount of confusion in the amendment and the effect it would have. I cannot accept it in its present form but if the Deputy re-examines it, I may be able to.
I take the Minister's point in respect of amendment No. 66, namely, that it refers to licences issued under the Local Government (Water Pollution) Acts. I am concerned to ensure that the planning register includes references to those requirements where they are applied.
We want to ensure that people are aware that not only do they have rights under the planning Acts but also -
That there are obligations involved? That is a material consideration for other people who might be seeking planning permission within an area. I would be happy to withdraw the amendment and return to the issue on Report Stage. I would welcome it if the Minister was prepared to consider a newly drafted amendment in the interim.
I will consider doing so.
I thank the Minister for that.
With regard to amendment No. 242, I take the Minister's point and we will have time to consider the matter before the amendment is finally dealt with. I do not necessarily disagree with him on that matter.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 67, 330 to 335, inclusive, 543, and 549 to 551, inclusive, are related and may be taken together by agreement. Is that agreed? Agreed.
I move amendment No. 67:
In page 26, subsection (2), lines 47 to 49, to delete paragraph (j) and substitute the following:
"(j) particulars of any decision to revoke or modify a permission in accordance with section 43,”.
The effect of these amendments is to replace section 43 in its entirety and to make certain other consequential changes to sections in the Bill which refer to section 43. As I propose to replace the section in its entirety, all other proposed amendments to the section are alternatives.
Section 43 is a modified version of section 30 of the 1963 Act which relates to revoking or modifying a planning permission. Amendment No. 67 arises out of a recent decision of the High Court in the case of Eircell Ltd. v. Leitrim County Council. The court found it was necessary for the authority to notify the person whose permission was being revoked or modified in advance of revoking it and to allow them to make submissions on the proposed revocation, despite the fact that section 30 of the 1963 Act did not contain any such procedures. As it is currently drafted, section 43 follows the 1963 Act with a notice affecting the revocation with an appeal to the board. The redrafted section now provides that the person with the planning permission must be notified of a proposed revocation and be given an opportunity to make submissions. The elected members may then decide to effect the revocation or modification and the affected party may then appeal to the board. People will, therefore, have the right to state their case in the first instance and then they will have the right to appeal a decision once it has been made.
The other amendments in this group, which deal with the register and the provision on compensation, are consequential on this particular change in the section from the notice affecting the revocation to the decision affecting the revocation itself. Deputy Hayes has tabled an amendment which proposes to remove the restriction on the authority that a revocation or modification may only be done where the permission no longer conforms with the development plan. I cannot accept that amendment because it would create too much uncertainty. No one would be sure if they possessed a permission on which they could rely which is unacceptable. People must be sure of a degree of certainty. Planning permissions are granted in accordance with the provisions of a development plan which sets out the policy of an elected council. Unless that development plan is varied and the proposed development would no longer be in accordance with the plan, it seems that permissions should last for at least their five year durations. For those reasons, I cannot accept the amendment and, on reflection, I am sure the Deputy may agree with my reasoning.
The effect of Deputy Gilmore's amendments would be to add to non-conformity with development plans, non-conformity with local area plans, special amenity area orders and landscape conservation orders. These amendments are unnecessary because they are comprehended by the non-conformity with a development plan. Local area plans, by definition, must be in agreement with the terms of a development plan. Special amenity area orders include development objectives which are incorporated into development plans. The provisions on landscape conservation areas mean that prescribed development, which would otherwise be exempted development, will require planning permission. Development plans must include objectives for the protection of amenities and landscapes and, therefore, I am satisfied that any planning permission which would not be in conformity - I believe this is the matter with which the Deputy is attempting to deal - with a special amenity area order or a landscape conservation order would also not conform to the provisions of the relevant development plan. The Deputy's intentions are covered by the provisions in the Bill. I ask the Deputies to accept the points I have raised and not press their amendments.
Perhaps I was not paying sufficient attention but I am not sure if the Minister referred to amendment No. 331. The substantive amendment in this group is No. 330 which seeks to insert a new section. I agree with the change in the process which is implied by the introduction of the new section. From the point of view of clarity and fairness, the new provision is better than that contained in the Bill as published and I have no difficulty with it in principle. The only quibble is in respect of amendment No. 331 which would have the effect of including in the notification process - namely, the notification of the intention to revoke - people who had made submissions on or who had objected to the original application. In the interests of openness, it would be worthwhile notifying the people to whom I refer. I accept that there could be quite a number of them in certain cases while in others there may be only a few. However, these people can be readily identified and if the procedure set out in the Bill in respect of tracking observations, etc., is followed, then a planning authority should have no difficulty knowing who should be notified. I urge the Minister to accept the amendment.
The intent behind amendment No. 332 is to inquire if it is fair that there will be consequential effects on original applications in cases where planning permissions were granted but not acted upon and where development plans have been changed. However, I accept that this may be resolved on the basis of the new section 43 which I have not yet read in great detail.
I wish to concentrate on amendment No. 330 which deals with the substantive issue. Am I correct in stating that the effect of the Minister's amendment will be to make two substantial changes in the existing provisions governing the revocation or modification of a planning permission? The first of these is the requirement that notice must be given to the person who holds the planning permission and I have no difficulty with that. I agree with Deputy Dukes's point that the requirement for notice should extend to those who made submissions or objections because they would obviously have an interest in the matter.
With regard to the second change, am I correct in believing that it is proposed to change the role of An Bord Pleanála in relation to revocations? As I understand it, an appeal may be made to the board against the giving of notice. This amendment proposes to change this so an appeal may be made to the board against a decision to revoke, which is - the Minister may correct me if I am wrong - new.
I am informed that it is effectively the same.
For example, if a permission has been appealed to the board which decides to grant it, is a local authority allowed revoke or modify it after the board has made a decision? If this is allowed, it is nonsensical that where a local authority revokes a permission which has been granted or approved by the board, the holder of the permission may appeal it to the board again.
The Deputy is correct that these are two fundamental changes in the existing procedure. Notice must be given to the person if it is proposed to remove a planning permission. The grounds for revoking planning permission include changes to the development plan. In the light of this, the local authority may decide to revoke an existing planning permission, which can be appealed to An Bord Pleanála. In the circumstances referred to by the Deputy, if the procedures were followed and the permission was granted by An Bord Pleanála in its original format, it would not be considering the same planning application as the development plan would have changed in the meantime. Therefore, the problem Deputy Gilmore referred to of the board reconsidering its previous decision does not arise because the planning circumstances would have changed.
Regarding the point made by Deputy Hayes, a planning permission can be revoked only where it is no longer in conformity with the development plan. My amendment proposes to ensure the affected person will be notified and can comment on the effect on him or her.
Regarding amendment No. 331, in the name of Deputy Dukes, the persons involved, almost 100% of the time, would have originally objected to the planning permission. The planning permission has been revoked. In these circumstances, there is not much merit in informing the persons involved. For example, in the case of objections to a mast, 2,000 or 3,000 could sign petitions or make formal submissions. The local authority would have to contact every person to inform him or her that the planning permission to which they objected has been revoked. Although I am in favour of keeping people informed, it is not feasible to adopt that procedure in this case. In most cases, this outcome has a beneficial rather than a detrimental effect.
The local authorities might like to communicate good news.
Perhaps Members would be delighted if I put an obligation on them to inform the public.
I wish to raise two further points. The decision to revoke a planning permission is a reserved function for the elected members of local authorities. Recently, an issue arose relating to two proposed revocations, one of which went through, which was whether the elected members were liable for surcharge in the event of a claim for further compensation. Will the Minister clarify whether elected members of a local authority, in exercising their reserved functions, are liable for surcharge or do they enjoy the same protection as officers of the planning authority in making executive decisions on planning applications?
Regarding the development plan, is a revocation possible only if there has been a change in the plan between the original granting of permission and the proposal to revoke? Is it possible to revoke a permission if the county manager thinks the planning permission conforms to the development plan and the elected members of the local authority do not?
I am not sure if I interpreted the Deputy's question correctly, but the members must be satisfied there has been a variation in the development plan, in which circumstances a revocation can be effected. If I have not answered the question, the Deputy can ask me again. Regarding the Deputy's first question, I will not venture a legal opinion on whether members are liable for surcharge, especially regarding potential cases. Local authority members have duties to discharge, and, like Members of this House, they are supposed to do this in a fair and balanced manner. If they act within their powers which are stated in legislation, I presume they would not be liable for charge, compensation claims or whatever. However, if they act unreasonably, they leave themselves open. Only the courts will decide whether people acted unreasonably in certain cases.
These amendments clearly outline the circumstances under which members can revoke a planning permission. If they follow these procedures, I am satisfied they will not leave themselves or their local authorities open to surcharges, compensation claims or whatever.
Surely the liability lies with the local authority and its members are protected.
Not if they act against the advice of the manager or legal advice. There have been cases, as Deputies know, particularly in planning matters where section 4 motions were proposed. I have heard it said, although I do not know if it is true, that councillors have proposed section 4 motions for the building of a house which has been refused, according to the manager, as it would cause a traffic hazard and that members have been advised that if such a permission was granted and someone was injured or killed, those who voted for the section 4 could find themselves liable for compensation claims. I do not know if that is legally correct, but as long as members act in a fair and reasonable manner they do not leave themselves open. I venture to say that if they get strong legal advice on something and decide to act contrary to that advice, they could leave themselves open.
I will pursue that point. It is an issue we may return to in the context of the local government legislation. If members of a local authority have reserved functions and are granted such by the Legislature, they have to be allowed to exercise those functions in good faith. They must also be allowed to exercise them to the extent that they may occasionally be wrong without necessarily exposing themselves to personal liability. There are plenty of examples of Ministers or officers of the State of one form or another having to make decisions in particular cases which may expose the State to considerable damages in compensation at a later date. There are a number of current examples of tribunals and issues before the courts where considerable damages are involved.
There is a special rule here for members of local authorities and I do not like it. What happens in practice - and we all have some understanding of this - is that a proposal is made in a local authority to revoke a planning permission, although it may be a permission that has been granted in the first place by the executive of the local authority. The county manager brings in a report with many reasons, including some, perhaps, from the council's law agency, saying it cannot be done and that if it is the members will be surcharged. It has very little to do with whether the local authority members are going to act responsibly or not. It is an exercise by the manager to bludgeon and frighten the members into seeing it his way.
There needs to be clarity here. In the case of revocation of a planning permission, the issues that arise are not clear-cut. In recent cases I encountered of revocation of planning permissions, there was a clear conflict between the wishes of the elected members of the local authority and the county manager and executive of the authorities concerned. It was a matter of judgment as to who was right and, ultimately, a decision to revoke planning permission is a matter of judgment. There may not be many circumstances where the elected members and the manager are entirely ad idem on the revocation of a planning permission, but I can think of several circumstances where the members and the manager will be at odds with each other.
If the Minister is saying the tactic - I use the term advisedly - of the county manager telling members at a meeting that they will leave themselves open to surcharges is all that is required to expose members of a local authority to a surcharge, that should not be permitted. Members of a local authority should have the same protection in law as officers of the local authority in the exercise of their functions. If members are given the function to make a decision as to whether a planning permission is revoked and if there are subsequent claims for compensation those claims should lie against the body corporate as opposed to the individual members who made the decision. That needs to be clarified in law.
I do not disagree with Deputy Gilmore. We are ad idem in what we are saying subject to the proviso, at all times, that the members act in a fair and reasonable way at all times. A Minister can go against advice and there are those who think that the more often he or she does so the better, but one cannot act in an arbitrary manner. One must have evidence to support one’s actions, whether one is a Minister or a local authority member. Members of a local authority, performing their duties, must have evidence to support whatever action they take. That evidence may consist of good reasons for revoking a permission while, on the other hand, it may consist of a warning from the legal department that the council might be open to claims for compensation. They must balance the two and make a decision. I agree with the Deputy that the kind of sledgehammer sometimes used - “You will always be surcharged” - is not a proper way to do business.
We are trying to do what the Deputy seeks - to introduce clarity as to when a planning permission can be revoked and that protects everybody. It must also be in conformity with the development plan which means, in effect, that when the plan is varied since a permission was granted or if the plan is contrary to what was in existence when a permission was granted, that is a reasonable ground for revoking the planning permission. Difficulties may arise where the permission is granted, the development plan stays the same and, for "political reasons" or because a head of steam builds up, members of a local authority act in an arbitrary manner and decide to revoke a permission for no other reason than as a protest or something similar.
The person who has the planning permission has certain rights as a result of getting that permission. I repeat that I am not a legal person, but a planning permission would probably be defined under the Constitution as a property right and, rightly, one could not walk over such rights. What we are doing here is to state clearly the grounds for a revocation of a planning permission - if it is not in conformity with the development plan, a permission can be revoked. That protects the members.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 68, 69 and 70 are related and may be taken together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 68:
In page 27, subsection (2), between lines 33 and 34, to insert the following:
"(v) particulars as to whether any building which is part of this application is listed for protection under section 49 of this Act,”.
These amendments are quite straightforward, although they are slightly different. They seek to add to the list of items which have to be included on the planning register. Amendment No. 68 refers to particulars as to whether the building is a listed building for protection, which is self-explanatory. Amendment No. 70 refers to particulars as to whether any part of the application forms part of a special area amenity order made under section 185, which again is self-explanatory. These are two fairly straightforward matters of fact which should be identified in the planning register.
The thinking in amendment No. 69 is that, in relation to a planning application, the planning register should show a record in summary form of all previous applications relating to this land since 1 October 1964, when the 1963 Act became effective. The reason for this is that the planning history of a site often can be relevant to the planning decision. In many ways the file is not complete anyway unless reference is made to the previous applications for planning permission on that particular site. Somebody looking at a file may see an application but there may be no reference on the file to the fact that there were previous applications for permission or indeed previous permissions granted on the same site. There is no automatic way of cross-referencing the file on an individual planning application with the files on previous applications. That can affect a range of people including somebody who may have an interest, perhaps an objector or somebody who has a wish to see the application in its totality and who needs to know what the previous applications were so that they can trace the planning history of the site. The applicant, the planning authority or indeed An Bord Pleanála may wish to know the planning history, for example, in determining an appeal. Difficulties arise, and reference has been made to them before and the Law Society has drawn them to our attention in relation to the conveyancing - the planning history of a site, whether a planning permission exists, whether there was a previous permission or the way one permission relates to another. There needs to be some easy way of tracing that and the simplest way is to require that the planning register lists the previous applications on the site and then those who have a mind to do so can refer to the earlier files. Sometimes this is done in practice. Sometimes the planning officer, in examining a planning application, will refer to the planning history of the site but very often, depending on the knowledge available to the planning officer, the trace is incomplete. It is important that at least the reference numbers of the previous planning files for the same site should be listed on the planning register.
The points made by Deputy Gilmore are already met in the Bill. The planning register is a record of all planning applications made since 1964 and therefore should include details of all applications made in that time. Perhaps what the Deputy is trying to get at is the fact that in some local authorities the records are not as good as they should be but the Bill, and the obligations under the Bill, will not rectify that problem. The problem already exists but in general terms local authorities throughout the country have a planning register that contains details of all applications made since 1964, so this amendment is not necessary.
The second point the Deputy made is covered following discussions we had in the Seanad and on Second Stage in the House. We have already addressed that point in section 7(d) where the development to which the application relates would materially affect a protected structure or is situated in an area declared to be an area of special amenity under section 185. The three amendments are met by the provisions as they currently stand.
I accept that amendments Nos. 68 and 70 are met, and I withdraw those, but I am not so sure that amendment No. 69 is met. I will withdraw it for the moment, perhaps with the intention of reintroducing it.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 69 and 70 not moved.
Amendment No. 71 is in the name of Deputy Gilmore. Amendments Nos. 320, 321 and 322 are related so the proposal is to discuss Nos. 71, 320, 321 and 322 together, by agreement.
I move amendment No. 71:
In page 27, between lines 34 and 35, to insert the following subsection:
"(3) The planning authority shall retain all the original planning files relating to the planning register for at least ten years to facilitate public inspection. After ten years a planning authority shall deposit the original files for safe keeping so as to facilitate public inspection in the National Archives or in another place for safe keeping and public access to be agreed with the Director of the National Archives.".
In a way this amendment is related to the issue I spoke about earlier, namely, the retention of planning files. I agree with the comment the Minister made that the keeping of planning files in some local authorities is far from perfect. I do not want to be too critical about that because when one considers the huge volume of planning applications that go through most local authorities each year, and that planning laws have now been in existence for almost 40 years, it is a lot of documentation to store and to keep in good order, particularly where the files are publicly available and available to a wide range of staffs and departments in the individual local authority.
However, the material on planning files is critically important, first, to the good planning and development of an area and, second, in relation to the status of the property itself for a variety of purposes, including the value and sale of the land and so on. There should be, therefore, a statutory obligation on planning authorities to retain all their original planning files for at least ten years to facilitate public inspection. It should be easier to do that now given the technology that is available for the storage of material - it does not necessarily have to be available entirely in hard copy - and thereafter, some arrangement should be made for the safe deposit of those planning files and for their recovery because repeatedly we come across cases where, for one reason or another, somebody needs to check something. For example, if an issue arises in relation to a housing estate which has been built 20 or 25 years, perhaps in relation to the disposal of a property, a planning application being made or whether a particular condition in the original application still applies or is still relevant, there is a need to check older planning files. The problem is that in many local authorities the original planning files are not available or they are haphazard and one finds, for example, that the planning office moved five years ago and that all the files have disappeared or, in some cases, sections of files have mysteriously disappeared; the file exists but critical pieces of information are no longer included. There needs to be a statutory obligation on the planning authorities to retain files and to make sure planning files are placed in safekeeping and that they can be recovered when needed at a later stage.
Amendments Nos. 320 and 321 are in Deputy Dukes's name. Section 37 deals with the availability of documents relating to planning applications. My argument for the acceptance of these amendments is similar to that made by Deputy Gilmore on the availability of documents. We are setting up a new planning scheme to deal with planning applications for the next 20 to 30 years and it makes sense to incorporate statutory provisions that would ensure local authorities make such information available to the public, planners and to those who have a material interest in the system. I am interested to hear the Minister's reply to these amendments. He should accept them, given that we are trying to put in place a more accountable and open planning system for the next 30 years or so.
We had a long debate in the Seanad on what we might do to make files available. We reached what I consider a reasonable compromise. It should be noted by those who advocate that files should be available over the counter for ten years or in perpetuity that planning files can be accessed under the Freedom of Information Act. If the timeframe has extended beyond that stated in the Bill, people can gain access to the files under that legislation. The Bill provides that the files shall be available for public inspection over the counter for a period of five years. That is a reasonable period, particularly when one takes account of the large number of planning files submitted to local authorities.
We had a discussion in the Seanad on the sending of planning files to the national archives. Following representations, I tabled an amendment to require that one copy of the documents should be retained in the local archives, in accordance with section 65 of the Local Government Act, rather than in the national archives, as those files are pertinent to local areas and should be accessible locally. That requirement is sufficient in relation to access and covers the points made in Deputy Gilmore's amendment to this section and in the amendments to section 37.
I ask Deputy Gilmore to withdraw his amendment, particularly in light of the large volume of work dealt with by the local authorities. The time of staff in planning authority offices should not be tied up trying to locate files relating to decisions made ten years previously. If a decision has been made on an application seven years or ten years ago, members of the public would not require instant access to such a file. Under the other provisions I mentioned, local authorities will have such files and will be able to locate them, but will not be able to provide them instantly over the counter.
Deputy Dukes's amendments are alternatives. One proposes that the files should be held in perpetuity, while the other proposes that they be held for ten years after a decision is made.
He recommends amendment No. 321.
Amendment No. 321 requires local authorities to keep planning files available for over the counter access for ten years after a decision is made. I addressed that point. Amendment No. 320 requires them to keep planning files available in perpetuity. I am opposed to those amendments.
Following a long discussion in the Seanad on this matter, what was proposed is reasonable in light of the requirements in this area under the freedom of information legislation and that files will be available in local rather than national archives. In light of those provisions, I ask the Deputies to withdraw their amendments.
With regard to retaining such files in local archives, I am not aware of the consistency of standard of the local archive service from one local authority to another. It is news to me that such a service exists throughout the country, that it is properly resourced and that there is a certain amount of accountability between it and the local authority. I presume the Minister is referring to the provision of such a service by a county library. If documents are given to a local authority, they have to remain with it. The provision of a local archive service requires necessary funding and staffing levels.
Any document of major significance submitted to a local authority is held by it. If the chairman of a local authority has to sign a statutory document, that document is held in the manager's office. The retention of documents of major concern within the domain of a local authority is a practice that has developed. I am concerned about the consistency of the standard of the local archive service in place throughout the country. I would be interested to hear the Minister's views on that.
The National Library keeps a copy of the major documents relating to the early period following the foundation of the State and the newspapers from that period on microfiche. It should not be a major problem to put on microfiche the information relating to planning applications after a certain period to ensure it can be readily accessed. The technology to facilitate that will be much better in five years' time than it is today. I am not particularly happy with the outcome on this matter, but I do not want to prolong the meeting on this point.
Deputy Hayes is correct. As time progresses, the idea of planning information being handled across the counter will become redundant. People will access this information electronically at home in five to ten years' time. If that does not happen, something will be seriously wrong with the development of the system of administration in planning offices and the use of information technology.
I do not wish to clog up the shelves behind the counter in a planning office with files that nobody will examine or to burden the officers of a planning authority with instant requests for planning information. I accept that many such requests relate to matters where notice can be given and a reasonable period allowed for the information to be produced. I am not sure people should have to go through the rigours of a freedom of information request to get the information they require, which in many cases involves the extraction of information that has been slow in coming through other channels.
Planning files will be available over the counter only for a period of five years after the granting of planning permission. That five year time-frame needs to be reconsidered. In the case of a large housing development for which planning permission is granted this year, development may not start on site until sometime next year, the third or fourth phase of the housing scheme may not be finished until year four or year five and the five year period may have run out by the time issues that are current need to be examined. There is a five year period during which alterations can be made after development takes place. There is a period of five or seven years, for example, before housing estates are taken in charge. The five year period is too short. It might be sufficient in some cases, for example, where development takes place immediately after the granting of permission or where everything is finished and the file is, to all intents and purposes, closed and going to the archive. However, five years after the granting of permission the file could still be live. Development could still be taking place on the site and the issues that arise with regard to the taking in charge of a housing estate are still current.
Five years is too short and the Minister should reconsider it. If it were five years after the completion of development it would make sense but five years after the granting of permission could cause difficulties.
My apologies for being elsewhere earlier. One of the things I had to do when I was absent was agree to take another piece of business tomorrow afternoon from 4.15 p.m. to 7 p.m. I hope the Minister will forgive my absence for that reason.
A wider issue arises under this series of amendments.
There are two Opposition parties.
We will discuss that tomorrow.
Not again.
The Minister is hesitant about keeping records in perpetuity and so forth. It should be remembered, however, that earlier on Committee Stage he spoke about electronic communication. That has implications for the keeping of records. One of the benefits of electronic communication is the fact that it facilitates the keeping and retrieval of records.
There are several other areas of State or public activity where this has become a problem in recent years. One is the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development. I have often pointed out that we now have the most highly regulated agriculture industry in the European Union. It is even more regulated than the old system under Kruschev in the USSR. One must now have a licence to farm. This type of regulation requires a huge amount of record keeping by the Department. Recently it went to the trouble of installing a state of the art system for producing, constructing and maintaining archives. It is now coming to the end of its heaviest requirement for this system and it has been suggested to me - a suggestion well worth considering - that this system might now be put at the disposal of the Land Registry to tidy up the Augean stable there.
There is no reason that that system or a similar one could not be put at the disposal of local authorities to keep, among other things, planning registers. If that were possible, it would vastly expand the capacity and capability of local authorities in this area. I will not die in the ditch, as it were, for these amendments but I would appreciate an indication of openness to the proposal on the part of the Minister. There is provision in the Bill for the Minister, after a certain date, to ask specified persons to examine this but I invite him, between now and Report Stage, to look at the possibilities I have mentioned. It appears to be possible now to include a constraining provision in the Bill which would at least give us the assurance that these records will be available.
I agree with Deputy Gilmore's last point that after five years a grant of planning permission can still be a live issue. It can have all sorts of effects on and implications for permissions to be sought or granted around it. We had a discussion earlier on Committee Stage about the difficulties that arise from unauthorised structures that have been in existence for a long time. One of the difficulties is that it is often hard to get the necessary records from the local authority to track down what did and did not happen with regard to a particular planning application. That leads me to the view, since it now appears to be possible, that we should consider including a provision which takes account of the new capacities we have to put this issue beyond doubt for the local authorities.
It is one case where we could reasonably make a requirement of this nature safe in the knowledge that we are not putting a huge burden on local authorities. If the advice I have been given is correct, this system has a substantial capacity. Even if we do not use the system that is in existence, it would be easy to install a similar system and make it available to the local authorities for this purpose.
The more I listen to this debate the more I think of Deputy Dukes's amendment with regard to in perpetuity. Deputy Gilmore made a valid point. Somebody who buys a house in a housing estate who is still waiting four or five years for the final layer of the road to be installed just wants to know about the decision and the conditions attached to the planning permission. They do not want to know how many people objected to the permission or how many made observations on the original application.
This is no big deal. I can look up The Irish Times for a date last year on the Internet. I will get every piece of information published in the newspaper on that date. I can also find out when the Minister last appeared on “Questions and Answers” and what his reply was to each question. It is no big deal. I believe we will have to include some conditions in legislation or at least in the regulations. Unless we tell the local authorities to get their act together with regard to new technology and use of the Internet, we will not get the result we want in terms of a better service for the public. There is no problem putting a mechanism in place where the decision and the conditions attached to each grant of planning permission over a period of time can be filed on a website and that information can be readily available on the Internet.
We will have to include stringent conditions in the legislation which will ensure that local authorities take the technology issue seriously.
A distinction must be made between making files available and making the type of information Deputy Hayes mentioned available. Information on conditions and grants of planning permission is always available on the register. That request is met.
I do not disagree with the points made by other Deputies in relation to the use of new information technologies. However, some of the amendments refer to the original planning files as distinct from the register, which was the subject of much of this discussion. The requirement in the Bill is that the file be available across the counter in the local authority office for at least five years. There is no compulsion on the local authority to bury the file in its archives after five years.
I accept the point made by Deputy Gilmore that there can be files which are live where there is phased development over a period of time. I presume the local authorities would not put those files into their archives or cellars when they are, in a sense, still live. The reference is at least five years, not a maximum of five years or anything else. The point made by the Deputy could probably be met by issuing a circular to the local authorities, something we will be doing in relation to various aspects of this Bill, emphasising the fact that the files must be available for at least five years. Certainly, as regards files that are still current - or that they think are still current, because I do not want local authorities to have to check if they are current - it should be made clear, if necessary, that they do not have to put them away in the cellars after five years. They should, in particular, take note of ones that may be still live. In doing so, I think we could meet what all the Deputies are trying to achieve. For the reasons I outlined earlier, I am wary of taking the prescriptive route, going for ten or 15 years in perpetuity. The fact that these files will go into a local archive and thus be available locally should meet Deputy Dukes's point. I will pursue with the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development the technological matters to which the Deputy referred.
The files will be available to people locally. It is not a case of their disappearing and not being accessible. I referred to the Freedom of Information Act in this regard. Deputy Hayes and others raised the issue of archives. An archival service is being put in place for the local government system. Those responsible are working in close co-operation with the national archives. A working group has been established to put in place a framework for the local archives that will adopt best practice. I would be more than surprised if it does not come forward with the type of matter mentioned by Deputies concerning the Internet, intranet and microfiche services which are already available in some local authorities. In addition, the Department has indicated that it will grant-aid the establishment of these archives. That was part of the commitment we made during the centenary celebrations of the local government service. We believe it is important that documents are retained in local government archives. We also believe it should be done locally rather than holding such material held at a central location. If a person wishes to write about aspects of local history he or she should be able to do so in the relevant local area. People should be aware that most of the material is available locally instead of having to visit the National Archives in Dublin.
We discussed section 2(2)(4) earlier. It is an all-embracing section as regards using new technology. It would permit us, if necessary, to issue directives to make our archives availablevia new technology. However, I do not think that will be necessary.
It might be.
It might be. We will have the power to do so if it is found to be necessary. In summary, I think we are all at one in regard to what has been suggested in the Government amendments following our discussion in the Seanad, namely, that the files will be available over the counter for at least five years, and longer if necessary. I have given an undertaking to include that proposal in the guidelines to local authorities. Following that period, the files will be available in a local archive in perpetuity. Those local archives will be operated on the basis of best practice and will allow for the use of information technology. I think the wishes of Deputies and the intent of their amendments will be met by means of the guideline I intend to issue to local authorities. I ask Deputies to withdraw the amendments on that basis.
I do not believe the Minister's circular will solve this problem. There is no limit to the rigidity in thinking which can exist in some local authority offices. If the law states five years, all pre-1995 files will disappear into the archive. A circular that states "Keep the live files behind the counter" will not satisfy the requirement. It will be difficult on a practical level because virtually all local authorities reference and maintain their planning records, for very good reasons, on a year-by-year basis. The year is a key reference in the way in which those records are kept. To break up that method of record keeping by telling local authorities they can take out of the 1995 planning files the dozen or so developments which are still under construction and keep them behind the counter will only add to the confusion.
There is no way round this other than by extending the number of years. I will withdraw the amendment rather than prolong the debate here, but I would like to return to it on Report Stage. The Minister should reconsider it. He has said that five years is a minimum period, but if he says five it will mean only five. In practice, files that have disappeared into the archives will become subject to requests under the Freedom of Information Act. The administrative effort in dealing with this will be far greater than the inconvenience of putting up a few extra shelves behind the counters in planning offices toaccommodate a couple of extra years' files from the early 1990s which are still available to the public.
I am impressed by what the Minister is saying. I have no difficulty abandoning my amendment that mentions "in perpetuity", safe in the knowledge that some day it will happen because that will be the effect of what we are proposing. I suggest strongly that, in light of what the Minister has said, he should accept Deputy Gilmore's amendment, perhaps with a suitable modification to take into account what the Minister said about local archives. Deputy Gilmore is right; a hard-headed look at this would suggest local authorities will do the minimum that is required of them and no more. It would be very satisfactory if the Minister could agree to return on Report Stage with something along the lines of Deputy Gilmore's amendment, suitably modified to take account of local archives.
It strikes me that we are going to spend a great deal of time on Committee Stage and that we will have a large number of amendments for Report Stage. I have already given undertakings concerning a number of amendments for Report Stage. Perhaps we could strike a bargain by moving this to seven years on the basis that we will not have the amendment resubmitted on Report Stage. The seven year period would coincide with the enforcement period which would be a neat way to deal with it.
On occasions like this my old trade union official instinct breaks out - when an offer is made, accept the deal.
Deal done.
I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 71:
On page 57, line 35, to replace "five years" with "seven years".
Is that agreed? Agreed.
Amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 71 agreed to.
Amendment No 71, as amended, agreed to.
Will the Minister pursue the question of the archives?
Yes.
I move amendment No. 72:
In page 27, subsection (3), line 36, to delete "as soon as may be" and substitute "within three working days".
This amendment relates to the planning register. Under section 7(3) as drafted "The planning authority shall make the entries and corrections as soon as may be after the receipt of any application . . .". That is not good enough and the amendment proposes that any entries and corrections should be made within three working days. I wish to provide a specific reason for this.
In my local authority area recently, people who objected to an application from a certain person had very pertinent information to add to the file in respect of that application. The information was sent to the planning department and seven days later it had still not been added to the file. The planning committee of the local authority met to consider the case and the information was not in the file, even though members had been given said information prior to the meeting. We should change the section to stipulate the entries and corrections should be made within a certain number of working days - it need not necessarily be three - because it is too lax as it stands and it needs to be tightened. In my opinion, the stipulation that these entries and corrections be made within three working days is good.
The type of information to which I refer should be placed on file as soon as possible and, in many cases, this is not happening. We should stipulate in law that such information should be provided within three working days because it can sometimes have a material effect on the discussions local authority members have with planners in respect of individual files.
As the Deputy is aware, the amendment involves a number of pluses and minuses. It is our intention that, once it is received, information should be placed on file as soon as possible and that it should be placed on the register in order that people can be made aware of it. My concern with the Deputy's amendment, which suggests that such information be provided within three working days - I accept his statement that it need not necessarily be three - is that if we include such a stipulation there may be a danger that it could be used at some stage in a legal argument. For example, might an application be proved invalid because the relevant authority had not entered it in the register within a specified number for working days? That is the dilemma with which I am faced.
I agree with the Deputy that three or four days should be adequate. However, what would happen if there was a deluge of planning applications within a particular period and a local authority did not enter certain information on an application into the register within seven days or whatever? Would it be deemed invalid? Perhaps the Deputy would agree to a period of seven working days? Having said that, however, such a period is too long as far as I am concerned because it might set a precedent whereby local authorities might believe they were not obliged to enter such information until seven days had elapsed.
My concern is that local authority members, when they request files, would have access to all the relevant information. Sometimes that is not the case.
The section refers to the register and the Deputy is concerned about files. As far as I am aware, it goes straight into the file. What we are discussing in respect of the section is the register.
I will withdraw the amendment and, perhaps, the Minister can consider the inclusion of a period of seven days. The best way to deal with these matters is to place responsibility on local authorities.
We will reconsider the matter for Report Stage. The Deputy has a valid point in respect of trying to be as specific as possible. If we find that it might not have a legal bearing, namely, that it would not be a ground for invalidating a planning permission, we should then specify a time period.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendment No. 73 not moved.
Amendments Nos. 74, 75 and 317 are related and may be taken together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 74:
In page 27, subsection (6)(a), line 45, to delete “offices” and substitute “head office and each district office”.
The intent behind this amendment is transparent. In addition to head offices, a number of local authorities have local offices in various parts of their jurisdictions. It is only reasonable that, in so far as is possible, information of this kind, which is kept at the headquarters of local authorities, should be available in their regional offices. There are some cases where this is much more of an issue than others. For example, in County Cork people may live a long distance from the headquarters of the county council. One Dáil colleague has informed me that when he is halfway from home on his way to Dublin he is still in County Cork. Not everyone who wishes to consult these registers has the capacity to travel long distances. I do not wish to be tedious but with the current level of information technology at our disposal it should be possible to make the register, not the planning files, available at regional offices of local authorities.
Amendment No. 75 proposes the deletion of the term "during office hours" because matters of this nature should be left at the discretion of local authorities which should establish their own schemes of observation in respect of them. If one considers a cross-section of local authorities one will discover that their offices open between 10 a.m. and 12.30 p.m., lunch lasts until 2 p.m. and they close at 4.30 p.m. or 4.45 p.m. The members of each local authority should determine this matter and exert pressure on the manager. The inclusion of the term "during office hours" makes the provision too rigid. I propose that it should be removed.
I have no objection to the principle behind Deputy Dukes's amendment, namely, that the register should be made available at local offices. However, many local authorities do not yet possess the IT capability necessary to achieve this. In addition, quite a number do not have district offices, etc. By attempting to include this requirement, the Deputy is legislating for something which may not be possible because the relevant systems may not be in place. As stated previously, under section 224 it will be possible, when local authorities go on-line, to introduce regulations to ensure that they make this information available.
With regard to the other amendments, I understand what Deputy Hayes is attempting to do. However, the effect of what he is proposing could be to impose an obligation on local authorities to make the register available for inspection, seven days a week, 365 days a year. I take his point about office hours, etc. and the fact that members should decide the hours in which the register is available for inspection. However, that is a personnel and IR matter and the manager, who has responsibility for personnel, can decide the office opening hours. The Deputy is seeking to ensure that we make it as convenient as possible for the public to consult the register and I do not disagree with him in that regard. Equally, however, such matters are better left to local discretion. There is nothing which states that local authority office opening hours should run from 9 a.m. to5 p.m.
The Minister, who attended council meetings in the past, will be aware that legislation of this nature is interpreted in the most restrictive way possible. Perhaps we could include the term "subject to the agreement of the council".
The Deputy is straying into personnel and IR matters which come within the bailiwick of county managers. As a matter of policy, members of a local authority could make a decision that the planning office should be open, say, one evening a week between 6 p.m. and 8 p.m. for the manager to go through his IR procedures and so on to have the policy implemented. That route should be followed. As part of branching out the library policy document, we are trying to get more user friendly opening hours for libraries and there are IR issues. On that basis, I cannot accept the amendment as it is a matter for the local authority and it can be a policy matter for the members. I know the point the Deputy is making because in the past planning offices were only open to the public from 9 a.m. to 12 noon and it caused difficulties. This was due to the pressures of the planning office at that time. These matters are best left to the individual local authorities, mindful that most of the time they take the most rigid interpretation. It is not something for which we should legislate in primary legislation.
It would be useful, following the enactment of the Bill, if the Minister would send a guide of consumer services to local authority planning departments connected with their offices. There must be consistency in the availability of files, the register and the Internet; there is no consistency in the time available for the public to check information. Some local authorities provide public space where people can take out files and open up maps, but in others people are required to take a ticket and they are usually called hours later. This may not be a matter for primary legislation but coherent guidelines must be sent to local authorities following the enactment of the Bill. We are entering a new procedure, a new era of local government and, as national policy makers, we expect that these matters will be adhered to at local level.
I am not entirely happy that what I want done should come under section 224. It allows the Minister to make regulations - which will be discussed later - on information being made available, but it does not say where. Do all sub-offices of local authorities have IT capability?
The Deputy is testing my knowledge of the local government system. In general terms it can be said that the local authorities which are branching out and which provide services for the local area office are generally state of the art offices with IT systems and so on. On previous occasions I said that at least two of them are developing systems on a pilot basis and, when finalised, I hope they will be used in other local authorities. Not only will people be able to obtain the information on the planning file but also a three dimensional image on computer as to what is being proposed. That is how advanced some of them are. In general terms, the local authorities advancing the quality service to customers and those with one stop shops are the best geared for information technology.
I conclude from that happy conjunction of IT capability that the Minister will have no difficulty in accepting my amendment. It would mean that for any local authority moving into IT capacity, the regional offices would have to do the same.
This would make it compulsory in primary legislation.
Yes. The planning register, which is an important document——
Yes. Each local authority would have what are called "area offices" from which the local area engineer operates. They are depots basically. That is the only district office available to a range of local authorities. The Deputy's amendment as it stands could, or might, include those offices and they would not have the IT capability we are talking about.
I would be prepared to reword it to provide that the register shall be kept at each of the public offices of the planning authority. I understand and accept the Minister's concern about providing for fiddle-faddle details in primary legislation but the planning register is not a mere detail. It is an important document and should be made as accessible as possible to the public. Local authorities should be encouraged to make their services more accessible to the public by having offices other than their headquarters and there should be a provision in that regard. Some of them have taken that route.
We are talking about the register which dates back to 1964. The library would be a public office of the local authority. Is the Deputy suggesting that the register be included there?
What is the difficulty?
There would not be a difficulty if it is computerised but there could be difficulties if the physical copies of the register——
We are talking about information being accessible electronically and the Minister will agree with me in this regard.
Yes.
As long as the library is connected to the same system, as is the case in other public offices, there would not be a difficulty in having the register there. There is much to be said about information being accessible in libraries.
If the Deputy is talking specifically about making the register available electronically where facilities are available, I would not have a difficulty in trying to see if something suitable could be drafted.
I am not talking about having a hard copy of the register everywhere, but it should be accessible where there is electronic capacity.
Yes.
On that basis, I withdraw the amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Amendments Nos. 75 and 76 not moved.
Section 7, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 8.
Amendment No. 77 is in the name of the Minister. Amendments Nos. 308, 336, 467, 469, 476, 500, 501, 516, 545 and 588 are related and may be taken together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 77:
In page 28, subsection (1), line 21, to delete "14 days" and substitute "2 weeks".
Again, Deputies will recall I mentioned a couple of groupings of corrective amendments. This is the second group which includes one tabled by Deputy Gilmore. Basically we are talking in terms of replacing the written numbers with numerals and to correct references from days to weeks to conform with the language in the rest of the Bill. Much time was spent going through the Bill in the Seanad and we thought we had got this right but we did not. As part of the consolidation process it was decided to ensure that as far as possible, a standardised approach was adopted to describing time periods set down in the Bill and, therefore, time periods prescribed in the Bill are now in weeks. The nine Acts to date which we are consolidating use days, weeks and months in various permutations in various provisions. However, as I say, in proof-reading the Bill, references to months were missed and these groups of amendments are intended to make the necessary changes to weeks. Deputy Gilmore, in the middle of this, seeks to restore the period for taking an appeal to the board back to one month from four weeks. He wants to reverse everything. If I accept his amendment, I will have to come back to the Bill again and I am not going to do it.
Can I plead a special case for it? Currently, when a planning decision is made and the decision is circulated to whoever has an interest in it, such as the applicant and people who made objections and so on, a date is put on it. If the date is 18 April 2000, then one knows that the deadline for the submission of one's appeal to An Bord Pleanála is 18 May 2000. If one changes it to four weeks, then I am not sure, as I have not worked it out in my head, by what exact date the appeal has to be submitted. There is a special case for putting the one month period on the Bord Pleanála appeal because it hangs on the two dates and that has been accepted. We have all known cases where appeals have been delivered at 5.30 p.m. rather than 5 p.m. and have been refused. The date is very important. As I understand it, the present position is that there is a period of one month and the appeal has to be made, date to date, in that month. If one changes from the current position it will give rise to a certain amount of confusion and we will end up with appeals where someone goes in on 17 May with an appeal and they will be told they are a day late and that the four weeks expired the day before. They will think it was a month. There will be that problem because this is going to be a switch from the current understanding to a new understanding.
Again, for the convenience of the public and for the simplest way of understanding this, one does not have to work out the dates. If the date given is 18 April, the appeal has to be in by 18 May. The four week period gives rise to the question of what day it is issued. There is a special case relating to the appeal.
When the local authority issues its decision, at the bottom of the decision, as most members will be aware, where it says that it may be appealed to An Bord Pleanála and so on, the local authority will specify the date by which it has to be appealed so that there can be no confusion and it will be easier on the members of the public. The Deputy is right in saying that there is confusion because if a planning application is issued on 18 April, people only have until 17 May, not 18 May, to make the appeal. Most people think, as the Deputy said, that they have until 18 May. One has to put it in the day before but most people do not understand that. That is why we are talking about making this more transparent. It conforms with what we are discussing, that is, changing from one month to four weeks and we are going to provide for the date to be specified to make it even more transparent. The concerns of the Deputy will be well met by that, probably better met than returning to or retaining the present system.
I still think what I said is correct and valid. We will come to it when we reach my amendment.
Just to satisfy my curiosity, I know things can be missed in the proof-reading, but why is amendment No. 588 included in this? That is deciding to substitute "the age of 16 years" for "sixteen years of age". Is that related to months?
That puts it into numerical form.
So that is the logic. It is generic rather than specific.
Amendment agreed to.
Section 8, as amended, agreed to.
NEW SECTION.
Amendments Nos. 78 and 81 are related and may be discussed together by agreement.
I move amendment No. 78:
In page 28, before section 9, but in Part II, to insert the following new section:
"9.-(1) The Houses of the Oireachtas shall every 10 years make a national spatial development plan relating to the whole area of the State, which plan shall set out an overall strategy for the proper planning and sustainable development of the State.
(2) Not later than 8 years after the making of a plan, the Minister shall give notice of intention to review the existing plan and to prepare a new plan.
(3) Regulations under this section shall make provision for submissions from any person to be received and considered by the Minister, or pursuant to subsection(4), the Houses of the Oireachtas.
(4) The Minister shall prepare a draft plan and submit it to the Houses of the Oireachtas, and the Houses of the Oireachtas may by resolution adopt the draft with or without amendments, having considered any submissions made to them.".
The concept of national spatial strategies is a relatively new one here, as I am sure the Minister will tell us in due course. He has commenced a procedure for the drawing up of a national spatial strategy for Ireland by the end of this year or certainly the early part of next year. This amendment concerns setting down a procedure for the making of a national spatial plan. It is no longer acceptable that national planning is effectively done in private by the Minister, by the Government and by the various Departments. The issues involved in national spatial planning include physical planning, settlement strategy, transport, housing policy and the integration between all those elements should be debated and considered in public. It should be done in a way where the elected representatives make the plan and the process which is involved in the making of that plan should be an open one and should be somewhat analogous to the kind of procedure that is used for the making of county development plans and city development at local government level.
The Minister has expressed some views on the way in which one House of the Oireachtas is elected. I suggest a reform that might appeal to him, a change in what the Houses of the Oireachtas actually do. It should be possible to develop a national view about the issues which are involved in national spatial planning which does not lend itself to partisan division in the way that many of the issues we debate in the House do. The making of the national spatial plan is an appropriate and new role for the Houses of the Oireachtas.
Also that process would integrate very well into the role that local authorities play in the adoption of local and county development plans which we will have to take into account, the national objectives which are set in national spatial planning. This is becoming more and more important especially if one thinks of the way, for example, people in this city are examining the problem of housing and the fact that the commuter belt for Dublin is arguably now an arc from Dundalk, around by Mullingar, Athlone, Carlow and down as far as Wexford.
Problems of transport, housing policy, physical planning and the delivery of services are all integrated and the way in which the country develops depends on the way they are integrated. The amendments I am proposing do not anticipate what may or may not be in a national spatial plan but this is a planning and development Bill for the whole country. It is not just a planning and development Bill for local authorities. A very critical part of that is the national spatial plan; therefore, the Planning and Development Bill which we are now adopting should make provision for a procedure to consider and ultimately adopt the national spatial plan.
Amendment No. 81 provides that development plans should be compatible with any national plans, policies or strategies which the Minister determines relate to proper planning and sustainable development. The focus of section 9 is development plans rather than national spatial strategies. The idea is that the national spatial strategy, which is being drawn up by the Department, can be given recognition in the development plan process. The wording is similar to that in section 23(4) which provides for the same thing when regional planning guidelines are being drawn up.
My amendment will give recognition on a statutory basis to the national spatial strategy. That meets some of the points in Deputy Gilmore's amendment. I do not propose to accept the amendment because it puts an onus on the Houses of the Oireachtas rather than the Minister to make a national spatial strategy. That is not an appropriate function of the Houses of the Oireachtas. It is premature to table such an amendment until we are certain about the remit of the national spatial strategy.
In the context of drawing up an implementation programme as part of the strategy, consideration must be given, among other things, to whether further legislation is necessary. Any such legislation would be wider in effect than issues which relate directly to land use planning. My amendment is focused on development plans only and that is important. However, any proposed legislation on a national spatial strategy is likely to impact on both land use planning issues and the sectoral provision of infrastructure. I would prefer, if necessary, to introduce carefully considered legislation to deal with all aspects of the national spatial strategy rather than this type of provision.
The preparation of the report on the scope and delivery of the national spatial strategy will be completed this month. A draft version is being considered and finalised by the Department and it will be published as soon as possible. It is intended to disseminate that report on as wide a basis as we possibly can. That report will give everybody a better idea of what the national spatial strategy will deal with and what legislation might be required to give it full effect.
I accept the Deputy's point that Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas should have a serious input into the national spatial strategy. We have indicated that we are looking for widescale participation in the process, which is necessary. I would be pleased to arrange for the head of the spatial planning unit in the Department to make a presentation to the committee on what we are doing and what we intend to do and to take full submissions on the national spatial strategy. That would be important.
My amendment focuses on development plans. I accept the thrust of the Deputy's argument that it is necessary for development plans of individual local authorities to take the national spatial strategy fully into account. However, until the report is published and we have a clear idea of what might be needed, it is better to accept my amendment. We can consider other legislation for a national spatial development plan on an ongoing basis.
The Minister's response is disappointing. Deputy Gilmore's concept of a spatial plan, whether in this Bill or in future legislation, must be grasped. The Government has set up an arm of the Department to examine this area but there has been no clear outcome. The Minister is missing an opportunity to insert a section in the Bill to deal with public policy. We heard today, for example, that the projections for population growth in the Dublin region up to 2011 are likely to be met in 2004 or 2005. That will have a significant impact on the Government's ability to reduce house price inflation in the Dublin area. That shows we are getting it wrong. There must be an attempt at national level to introduce a ten or 20 year planning and development policy. Difficult decisions must be taken about designating new growth centres and regional hubs. However, that issue has been kicked to touch at present.
There is a presumption in amendment No. 81 that departmental officials, who are already doing a useful job, will have to pore over the development plans for each county. While it puts an onus on local authorities in each functional area to take into consideration national policy, it also requires someone else to analyse and examine whether development plans are in place. To date, there has been no detailed consideration of development plans at national level, let alone at regional level. While this amendment is worthwhile, it will be meaningless unless an enforcement mechanism is established in the Department to ensure that all development plans are considered and omissions or amendments pointed out to the development authority. Such an enforcement mechanism has not been established in the Department to consider issues of density or planning guidelines.
I am in the happy position - if it could be called that - of not agreeing with anyone who has spoken on this issue so far, including Deputy Hayes, Deputy Gilmore and the Minister. I am speaking from a background of a little acquaintance with what economic planning should be.
I am a little upset to hear the Minister's view of the role of the Oireachtas in these matters. We go through the motions of having the Oireachtas pronounce its views on a budget every year and on a national development plan. However, I have not seen a budget or a development plan altered much by the Oireachtas, except in the case of political cataclysm when a couple of budgets were altered and one national development plan at the end of 1982 was completely fired out, and rightly so, by the Oireachtas because it was based on the phoniest set of figures ever presented to the Oireachtas. Apart from that, the Oireachtas has little effect on these issues. We play a type of advisory role and we speak in a grandfatherly way on these issues but the Minister decides whether he or she will pay any attention to us. We will not solve all the ills of parliamentary democracy when dealing with this Bill.
There is an attachment to a mystique of planning when we talk about a spatial strategy about which I am worried. I would hate to feel we were going to get involved in a very mechanistic concept of planning, whether that is in the context of spatial strategy or anything else. There could even be a more Stalinist or deterministic view rather than the mechanistic and that is not at all appropriate to our needs. All the cases in which that was tried in the past were abject failures.
They were not successful in the 1950s and 1960s because we did not have those prescriptive plans. I am even more worried when I look at something like the regional planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area. These now seem to be the accepted wisdom of the planners in the region and proposals are judged in reference to these guidelines. I am not sure there is any consensus anywhere outside the minds of those planners and the Department of the Environment and Local Government about this. For example, they invented a town called Naas-Newbridge-Kilcullen and have invented another town called Kildare-Monasterevin. This is part of the agglomeration type planning we are seeing and it would be an enormous failure of planning if we ever saw Naas, Newbridge and Kilcullen become anything like a continuous conurbation. God forbid that Kildare and Monasterevin should also become a continuous agglomeration. It will not happen in any case because the area between the two towns is mostly bog and it would be difficult to build much on it; it will be difficult enough to build a motorway on it, as we know, without vertigo auriculus.
I am worried that we are going to develop an excessively mechanistic approach to planning and I am also worried that a national spatial strategy might become a mechanistic method of planning. I have no difficulty accepting that we should have a concept at national level and a spatial strategy that indicates what trends of development we want to encourage. Neither do I have difficulty, once we adopt it, with having that as the proper framework for county development plans. However, I have the most violent objections to it becoming what conditions the content of those development plans and to anything that became a directive to county development planners in setting out their plans. I do not feel we are exactly making a mountain out of a molehill with this spatial strategy, but the mountain is now labouring mightily and what it will bring forth will be a mouse in comparison with the expectations people have.
At a conference some weeks ago I heard a member of staff recently seconded to the unit in the Minister's Department speak about the concept and the approach. He did an extremely good job, though he had only been seconded two days beforehand and had obviously spent a good deal of time preparing his speech. It appeared to be giving huge mystique to some rather simple concepts and I was confirmed in that view when I heard the Minister say we are going to have a spatial strategy at the end of next year. That will make a nonsense of much of the national development plan, not that I have seen any huge move on matters in that plan. If it is to work, it will mean that two years of the plan's life will have gone by before we have a spatial strategy. If we are to believe there is an impetus behind the national development plan, the fact is that decisions made in the first two years of the plan will substantially condition what happens in the following four years. The decisions in the first two years of any development are key decisions and will inevitably have an effect on the next four years. One finds that options narrow year after year and we will have two years of the plan without a spatial strategy, so by the time we have that strategy to use as a guideline and framework, its value will be vitiated by the fact that a third of the plan's period will have gone by. That will not reduce its value the next time around and I hope will not be making enormous changes to our spatial strategy after the end of the 2000-6 planning period - not that it should be set in stone - but if we get it right it should get us a development horizon that is longer than ten years. When I hear some of the advice now being given by professional planners that is my hope.
I was advised recently by a person who does a lot of planning consultancy for major firms that his view of the future development of this economy was that we would have a large conurbation stretching from Belfast to Wexford and that the only interest planners in that area would have in the west would be that they would need water from the Shannon as there would not be enough in the eastern region for the kind of development he sees there. What he was saying was that the eastern seaboard, if the development follows its natural course, will become very much like the southeast of England and the rest of the country will become an environmental playground for exhausted city dwellers who want to get away from the congestion that will inevitably follow. If a spatial strategy is to have any sense for us it must ensure that that does not happen, but it cannot be a directive. It cannot be prescriptive or something we have to make other pieces of the jigsaw - like the county development plans - fit into; it can only be a framework that gives us a broad brush picture. If it is any more than that it will be wrong.
Having disagreed with everyone, my conclusion is that the Minister's amendment is most sensible.
The Minister's amendment requires county development plans to take into account national plans, policies and strategies which would include the national development plan, which has already been published, the national spatial strategy, whenever that is adopted, and any other planning related policies put forward by Government.
We can sometimes forget when we use jargon for these matters that we are talking about basic ideas. For example, the National Roads Authority told this committee that in six years, according to them, we will have four or five motorway or dual carriageway standard roads linking Galway and Dublin, Dublin and Cork, Dublin and the south-east and up into the north-east. We know there are plans for rail development and regional planning guidelines relating to the growth of suburban and commuter developments and there are current planning issues which arise in every planning authority in relation to the development of towns and villages, particularly with regard to what is to happen to villages near Dublin, Cork and other large towns and cities - whether they are to become part of the suburbs or developed on a smaller scale.
Deputy Dukes referred to the east coast urban stretch. I do not agree it will happen that way by virtue of the way in which people are working and the way the world of work is changing. We will probably find a greater desire for people to move out of urban areas and to live outside of that conurbation and to live, work and communicate in different ways. All that is critical to planning because a motorway such as the Bray-Shankill bypass and the motorway down into North Wicklow and the extension of the DART into North Wicklow bring huge development into the area of North Wicklow. Consequently, problems are arising in villages such as Delgany as to how many houses it should sustain and so on. The same is happening in Kildare, Meath, etc.
The idea of national planning which is happening anyway is very much part of the planning process. Who should make the plans? The plans should not be made by an individual Government who happens to be in office at the time the decisions come up for consideration. If there is one thing we have to learn from the way economic development has taken place in this country it is the desirability of achieving a degree of national consensus. Everybody now subscribes, and I do not know if Deputy Dukes agrees, to the idea of social partnership. This has been a very good idea and has been a major contributor to the economic success of this country because trade unions, farming and business organisations and Government gained an understanding about certain economic and social objectives that needed to be achieved, such as competitiveness, economic growth and economic development generally. That has contributed enormously.
It is accepted by everybody that infrastructural development is going to characterise the first decade of this century. We need to have the same degree of national understanding about infrastructural development in the first decade of this century as we had about economic development in the past two decades of the last century. Let us take a practical example. How many more Glen of the Downs do we want to have? There needs to be a public understanding about what we are doing in terms of major development. The only way we can achieve that is to debate it in public and, ultimately, that the decisions are taken collectively by those who are elected to represent the public, not by one half of Leinster House who happen to be in Government at that time or much less than one half of the office holders at that time.
I am encouraged by one comment the Minister made which was his suggestion that perhaps this was an area that might require legislation in its own right. My reason for putting it forward here was that this is the Planning and Development Bill. I do not accept that planning and development are matters just for county councils. There is a concept of national planning which was not part of the 1963 Act. We have developed our thinking on national planning to a much greater extent. We have also put national institutions in place, such as the National Roads Authority. Since other areas of infrastructural development are being planned nationally in a way that was not the case in the early 60s, we need to have a national framework for the adoption of national plans. That is the reason I have submitted this amendment. We will probably return to this topic again.
Is it the Minister's intention that there will be legislation to underpin the national spatial strategy because he gave a hint in that direction?
On that point, this is not to be construed as a promise of legislation but it is likely that separate legislation will be necessary. I will know better when I have the initial report on the scope and delivery of the national spatial strategy. I will have a better idea at that stage but from what I have heard so far, we probably will need specific legislation.
I took notes on what Deputy Dukes was saying and I was desperately trying to find some point on which we might disagree but I do not disagree with much of what he said. The one point he raised with which I would take issue, as I did before, is on the national development plan, although he seems to have modified it at this stage, and it being a nonsense to have the national spatial strategy two years into the national development plan. I accept the point that it would have been better if we had the national spatial strategy done in the two years prior to the national development plan but we have not so we are faced with the reality. I acknowledge the point the Deputy made on the plan itself and without it being very rigid and inflexible, that we should be able to put it in place for the ten or 15 years hence from the two years that we have and that it should not cause too many adjustments.
I will make the point I made before also on the national development plan which is based on many documents and studies which were done over a period of time, some or many of which will also be used as a basis for data and so on in the national spatial strategy. This is not totally isolated.
I wish to make another point on this matter and on Deputy Gilmore's comments. As I said, I have no great difficult with the comment made by Deputy Dukes. I have no difficulty with anything he said but we might have a difference of emphasis on some of them.
The Minister is trying hard.
I take issue with Deputy Gilmore's point on this. We can have paralysis by analysis and we can also have it by consultation and reaching a consensus. The Glen of the Downs was perhaps not the best example he could have cited but I acknowledge the point he was making. Decisions will have to be made and no matter how much consultation we do, we will not achieve total and absolute unanimity. Someone has to make a decision and that will be whoever happens to be in Government at the time of the publication of the national spatial strategy. I have no great doubts about who that will be but one never knows.
I reiterate what I said about members having the opportunity to make an input but we are also talking in terms of the regional assemblies, regional authorities and local authorities being consulted. We have set up links with the recently appointed county development boards. State and semi-State agencies and the social partners have already been contacted and have been given every facility to make submissions. There is a website where all the information is put up as quickly as possible so that people can know what is going on.
I agree with Deputy Gilmore that it is absolutely necessary that everybody should know as much as possible and he is right in saying that everything should not be done by three or four planners under any particular political direction. It needs to be done as openly and as transparently as possible. We need to have the maximum amount of consultation. Anybody who has heard the head of the special planning unit, Finian Matthews, talking at the various seminars or addressing the regional assembles and so on or anybody who has contacted him would not dispute the fact that he is very open and willing to engage as much as possible in consultation. Decisions will have to be made. While some of them will be pleasant for some people, others will not. The amendment focuses on development plans. I agree with Deputy Dukes that we cannot be prescriptive. Local authorities must take into account national plans, policies or strategies, such as the NSS, and put them into the development plans. The detailed planning strategy for a local authority area is a matter for the local authority and that is where it should remain. That is the effect of my amendment.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
SECTION 9.
I move amendment No. 79:
In page 28, subsection (1), line 37, to delete "6" and substitute "5".
At present the requirement is that development plans are made every five years. However, the Minister proposes to change that to every six years. I do not see any reason for the change. I understand it is the Minister's intention to include this in the local government legislation. We were told in The Irish Times last week that there will be five yearly intervals between local elections. There is a strong case for retaining the five year interval for development plans which would broadly coincide with the life of an individual council. If the Minister introduces the six year interval, a council might not be involved in preparing a development plan. I argue for retaining the five year interval. I do not understand the need to increase it by one year. I know of one famous case, which we will probably hear more about in the coming months, where a development plan lasted considerably longer than five years. That is not desirable. Development plans should be made within the prescribed interval. Why has the Minister chosen six years rather than five?
I have sympathy for Deputy Gilmore on this issue. In a six year plan period with five year terms of office for councils, there will be five development plans and six councils in 30 years. The council in office at the end of the last development plan will make the next one. I see some virtue in a period of validity for a development plan which is longer than the period of office of a council. One of the more nonsensical claims made by people pretending to make a serious political argument before the last local elections in a number of counties where councils were concluding or had just concluded their development plans was that one could not accept the validity of a development plan drawn up by an outgoing council. That is total balderdash and completely misunderstands the nature of the development plan process.
The useful innovation in this Bill is the requirement by statute that the revision of the development plan commence four years after the development plan comes into effect. That is realistic because we have seen in many cases local authorities taking an unconscionable length of time to agree a development plan. Deputy Gilmore referred en passant to the difficulties in agreeing a development plan in one local authority. We all know what that is about. If local authorities have a statutory obligation to begin their revision four years after the adoption of the current plan and to complete it within two years, it is a reasonable timeframe to give them and a useful statutory duty to impose on them. One could argue that two years is a long time for the revision of a plan but it is better to take time at it and do it properly than to rush it and do it wrongly.
I would not die in the dish for either five or six years. The important modification is the two year period for the preparation of a plan. I was never good at mathematics or set theories but theoretically it could happen once in every blue moon that a council would take office just after the completion of a development plan and would go out of office halfway through the preparation of the next one. Statistically, that would probably happen once in every 30 years, so I would not be too worried about it.
I am worried that Deputy Dukes and I are agreeing so much on this Bill. The original commitment was that development plans would be made strictly every seven years. However, the six year period was mentioned as being better during consultations on the Bill prior to its publication. Deputy Dukes made an important point. There will be a statutory obligation on local authorities to review their plan or discuss progress on it after two years, to review it again after four years and to start the process over a two year period for the new development plan. The new development plan must be finalised at the end of year six or that which is agreed at that stage will come into effect. We will not have a situation which we had in some local authorities where, by design or otherwise, there were periods of 12 years between development plans which caused the type of difficulties we have seen in various places where plans had to be changed by material contraventions and particular zonings had to take place outside the overall plan. This is a reasonable approach.
On Second Stage Deputy Gilmore said the timescale for the review of the development plan was too tight. If we reduce it to five years, we will reduce the timescale for consultations. We will either have to make it a one year period for consultation, which would be grossly ineffective, or we will have to start a review of the development plan at the end of year three so it is completed by the end of year five. That is too tight a timescale. We have reached a reasonable compromise in having the review every six years, starting at year four and being completed by the end of year six.
I am persuaded by the Minister.
Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
I move amendment No. 80:
In page 29, subsection (3)(b), line 7, after “concerned” to insert “subject to any agreement which those authorities may make for the resolution of differences between any such reserved decisions”.
My only concern is to provide for where there may be a disagreement between two local authorities. We should recognise they have an obligation to sort out their disagreements.
I accept the Deputy's amendment.
Amendment agreed to.
I move amendment No. 81:
In page 29, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following subsection:
"(6) A development plan shall in so far as is practicable be consistent with such national plans, policies or strategies as the Minister determines relate to proper planning and sustainable development.".
Amendment agreed to.
Amendments Nos. 82 and 83 are related and may be discussed together.
I move amendment No. 82:
In page 29, between lines 19 and 20, to insert the following subsection:
"(6) Without prejudice to subsection (5) a planning authority shall be obliged to submit to all adjoining planning authorities the contents of its development plan for consideration and observation.”.
This amendment seeks to allow for inter-county planning at a more advanced level. Deputy Dukes may call it a Stalinist approach.
No. The Deputy is not capable of proposing a Stalinist approach.
Thankfully. My amendment proposes that where the documentation in connection with a development plan is submitted, other adjoining local authorities would be sent that information and their consideration and observations would be taken on board by the relevant authority. There would probably be no need for this particular amendment if the Minister removed "where appropriate" in subsection (5) where it states: "In making a development plan in accordance with this chapter a planning authority shall, where appropriate . . . ". We have to be more prescriptive because what is appropriate in year one may not be appropriate in years four and five. Take the issue of a road, for instance. I know of particular disagreements between my local authority, South Dublin County Council and Kildare County Council in respect of road development where we went on one particular vein and Kildare local authority went on another and there was not the appropriate consultation at the development plan stage.
It happens on waste management too.
I was just going to mention waste management. Amendment No. 83 proposes to insert a new subsection which states: "In making a development plan in accordance with this chapter a planning authority shall consider the views and observations of the regional authority relevant to its functional area". In line with greater co-ordination of planning departments, be they at a regional or a county council level, we have to ensure that regional policy, such as waste management, is adhered to. All I am proposing in this amendment is that the adjoining local authorities and the regional authority will be asked to give their views on the specific development plan in the functional area. That will add to the general consultation that takes place.
Is the Deputy saying that if we delete "where appropriate" from subsection (5), he will withdraw his amendment No. 82?
Yes, it would make it a condition.
We will accept that.
I thank the Minister.
I move amendment No. 1 to amendment No. 82:
In page 29, line 15, to delete "where appropriate,".
Amendment to amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 83 states:
In page 29, between lines 26 and 27, to insert the following subsection:
"(7)(a) In making a development plan in accordance with this chapter a planning authority shall consider the views and observations of regional authority relevant to its functional area.
(b) The relevant regional authority shall be asked to consider the implications of each development plan within its functional area and such consideration shall be sent to a planning authority.”.
In relation to amendment No. 83, section 27 requires a planning authority to have regard to any regional planning guidelines in force for its area when making a development plan and to comply with such regional guidelines where required to do so by the ministerial order, so that amendment is covered. In addition, section 14 of the Local Government Act, 1991, which deals with the regional authorities establishment order, requires a regional authority to review, from time to time, the development plans of local authorities in the region, with particular regard to consistency of such plans with one another and to make such statements as it considers necessary thereon. The Deputy's point is covered, therefore, in that there is already statutory provision and on that basis I would ask him to withdraw his amendment.
Following the implementation of this Bill, will it not become a norm that regional authorities will give detailed consideration to all the development plans in each region, that opinions will come from a regional authority which will be discussed by the members of that authority? It appears that we have set up these authorities and they have precious little to do. If they are not co-ordinating their sustainable development from the point of view of all the local authorities in that region, they do not add up to much. They should give opinions on development plans submitted from a local authority in regard to waste management, housing and a variety of other tasks. That has not happened to date in the case of many of the development plans that have been in place. Will we see that?
We should be seeing it at the moment because that is one of their functions. They are entitled to do that and they should do it but I suggest that with the passing of this Bill, where we are talking more explicitly about regional planning guidelines and so on, the regional authorities will probably get more and more involved in that, and that is something we would encourage. The Deputy is right. They have a function of co-ordinating at a regional level a variety of tasks, including sustainable development, waste policy and so on. It is a function they have and to my knowledge it is not one - I hope I am not maligning any of them - they have exercised to any great degree so far but the Bill will at least encourage them to do that.
Why will the Minister not make it a condition in either this section or section——
In section 14 of the Local Government Act, 1991, and in the Regional Authorities Establishment Order, 1993, they are given the specific remit to review, from time to time, the development plans of local authorities in a region with particular regard to the consistency of such plans with one another and to make such statements as it considers necessary thereon. They should be doing that because they have the power to do it. Perhaps the passage of this Bill, where they will be responsible for regional planning guidelines and so on, will make them a little more diligent in the exercise of that particular function.
I do not want to go over old ground but my amendment put the responsibility on the planning authority. I proposed putting in a condition which would require it to submit its proposals to the regional authority and seek an opinion from that authority. The Minister is saying that the regional authority can do that but there needs to be co-ordination between the regional authority and the local planning authority.
The point the Deputy is making in relation to this matter is in section 27, page 44, where it states:
"A planning authority shall have regard to any regional planning guidelines in force for its area when making and adopting a development plan.
The Minister may, by order, determine that planning authorities shall comply with any regional planning guidelines in force for their area . . . ".
I withdraw the amendment.
Before you withdraw that amendment, we have to deal with amendment No. 82a in the name of Deputy Gilmore, which is on a second list of additional amendments published on 18 April.
Amendment No. 82a reads:
In page 29, subsection (6)(a), line 22, after “matters” to insert “(including landscape characterisation)”
This is a fairly straightforward proposal. It relates to what two or more planning authorities will be required to do in co-ordinating their development plans. I am proposing that there should be a specific inclusion of landscape characterisation. It is easily understood that our county boundaries do not necessarily distinguish between the landscape in that particular area and there is a need for harmony between two corresponding local authorities and for them to include a similar consideration of landscape characterisation and to co-ordinate their view of that in their development plan.
Strong arguments were put forward in the Seanad, as a result of which I included "landscape preservation" as a mandatory objective of the development plan in order to raise the profile of landscape protection. That is one of the instances where a Minister can instruct the planning authorities to co-ordinate their plans. It does not need to be specified as we then return to why we need to specify one matter as opposed to another. There is no other matter specified in this section.
The draft landscape guidelines are at an advanced stage of preparation in the Department. These will heighten the awareness of the importance of landscape in all aspects of planning. It is intended that by following the guidelines, planning authorities will achieve a consistent approach to landscape assessment and that ultimately there will be a national atlas which will map landscape characters and values. The amendment is not necessary because it is covered in section 10(d).
Amendment No. 82, as amended, agreed to.
Amendment No. 82a not moved.
Amendment No. 83 not moved.
Section 9, as amended, agreed to.
SECTION 10.
I move amendment No. 84:
In page 29, subsection (2), to delete lines 32 and 33 and substitute the following:
"(2) Without prejudice to the generality of subsection (1), a development plan shall include objectives for-”.
This is a technical amendment which provides for mandatory objectives which must be included in the development plan. There is no change in substance. The text is reworded to clarify that the objective listed in section 10 must be included but that the additional ones in the First Schedule may be included as appropriate.
Subject to amendment No. 101.
Yes.
Amendment agreed to.
Amendment No. 85 in the name of Deputy Gilmore. Amendments Nos. 93 and 197 are related and amendments Nos. 85, 93 and 197 may be taken together.
I move amendment No. 85:
In page 29, subsection (2), between lines 33 and 34, to insert the following:
"(a) the need to integrate the planning and development of the area with the social, community and cultural requirements of the population of the area and with the provision of services to that population;”.
On Second Stage I said the word "integration" was missing from this Bill almost entirely. The concept of integrating physical planning with the wider social and economic issues does not require much advocating as the reasons are self-evident. There is a strong need to integrate the planning and development of an area with the social, community and cultural requirements of its population. We have learned from how suburbs developed in Dublin and other cities where there was an initial housing development, followed by a school, shops and perhaps 20 years later, community facilities, by which time huge social problems had developed because of the lack of integration between the physical development and social needs of the area.
The appropriate place to include the link between physical planning and social policy, economic and community objectives is in the development plans. There has been a tendency in the planning process to regard planning as a purely physical matter, of drawing lines on a map. Consequently, the evolution of development plans addressed physical objectives of land use planning. We must factor in people, how they live collectively and the way in which societies and communities develop. It is a great pity that the way in which planning was practised and legislated for in this country provided for the routing of roads, how wide they should be and what site and building lines and density per acre should be in developments. However, they did not take into account the needs of the people living, working and travelling in the areas being developed. The examples are legion of the social problems which have developed, particularly in urban areas, as a result of bad planning.
There is probably nothing which defines class more clearly in this country than housing development - how they were planned - in some cases ghettoised - and the lack of integration between physical planning and the needs of the community. To some extent, we have had a planning process which allowed for the building of housing estates when in fact what we needed to develop were neighbourhoods and communities. We need to make that link. The most appropriate place to do this is in the development plans. This amendment proposes that the objective of integrating physical planning with the social needs of the community should be included in development plans.
I agree with Deputy Gilmore. Amendments Nos. 93, 101 and 197 follow the same principle outlined by him. Deputy Gilmore has put down a similar amendment to my amendment No. 101 which proposes to include in the objectives of the development plan the matters set out in the First Schedule. Bearing in mind we are discussing a series of areas which are not in the direct control of local authorities, it is necessary to refer to these as objectives of the development plans because, as Deputy Gilmore said, we have looked on the planning process as purely physical. We cannot overlook the social and quality of life dimension to planning in the formulation of development plans. This is most obvious when we get it wrong. Some developments in the name of efficient physical planning have given rise to enormous social problems. If the considerations outlined by Deputy Gilmore and I had been part of the planning process from the beginning, we might have avoided many of the social problems resulting from the way we have pursued development.
The First Schedule includes the following options for development plans: location and pattern of development - these are not options but spatial planning concerns about which we spoke earlier; control of areas and structures, which is essential; community facilities - surely we should now realise after all the problems which emerged from unplanned, unbalanced and unstructured development that the consideration of community facilities should not be an option in drawing up a development plan but one of its core concerns; the same applies to the environment and amenities and infrastructure and transport - how many people are living in large housing estates on the fringes of our principal cities who now realise infrastructure and transport were unfortunately only a peripheral part of our planning consultations? How much money are we going to spend? The Government is talking about £8 billion for the transport infrastructure in Dublin to remedy the deficiencies in the provision of infrastructure and transport in the past.
Deputy Gilmore rightly referred to the wisdom deployed in the planning of housing and yet there is still no provision for social amenities. Local authorities will draw up development plans, make provision for housing and devise housing strategies according to this Bill when it is enacted, although I hope they will not do it in the manner the Minister has suggested. They will make plans to house substantial numbers of people in new areas but they have no say in when the Department of Education and Science will build a primary school or the national lottery will make funds available for the provision of a swimming pool or community centre. When we point out those needs, they will respond that it is not their job to provide swimming pools, schools or even hospitals and that responsibility for all those facilities lies elsewhere.
Unless we change our approach to planning we will continue to be dogged by this mismatch between housing and other amenities. Co-ordination is central to the planning process. That is why we should accept the approach in Deputy Gilmore's amendment, the other two amendments and amendment No. 101. They will bring the options in the First Schedule right into the heart of the planning process.
The Select Committee adjourned at 5 p.m. until 10 a.m. on Wednesday, 19 April 2000.