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Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Tuesday, 26 Mar 1968

Vol. 233 No. 8

Private Members' Business. - Planning Appeals Bill, 1967: Second Stage (Resumed).

Debate resumed on the following motion:
That the Bill be now read a Second Time.

When dealing with this Bill last week, I suggested that while there may be some case made for new planning legislation which would enable and encourage local authorities to adopt a more liberal attitude to their interpretations of their planning intentions, I pointed out that this Bill is not the correct way to go about it. I should like to make just one reference to the exchange I had with Deputy L'Estrange. He referred me to the Evening Press of 10th November, 1965, and subsequently, as it appears in the Official Report, to the Irish Press of that date. I went to the Librarian and asked him to get me the copies of the Irish Press and the Evening Press for that date. He told me that the evening papers, both the Evening Herald and the Evening Press, are not retained for longer than a year. I read very carefully through the Irish Press of that date and could not find anything in it which I could relate to Deputy L'Estrange's reference. I was out of town over the weekend and had another engagement on Monday so that it was not until today that I found this out and, therefore, I had no opportunity of going to the National Library to look up the reference. Until I see what Deputy L'Estrange is referring to, I must continue to assume that he was using the privileges which we are all granted in this House, for very good reasons, to try to make cheap electioneering propaganda on the eve of the election.

Having said that, I want to refer to one of the Minister's decisions which has led to contention, that is, in relation to the Mount Pleasant Lawn Tennis Club. As I pointed out to the House before, I am very familiar with this club, having been a member of it, and if I did not actually meet my wife at a dance in that club, I certainly met her at a nearby one and we danced in that club long before we were married. I know that club for the past 25 years and, therefore, I am familiar with some of the difficulties it has experienced. Today, on my way to Leinster House, I deliberately drove along Ranelagh Road and around Mount Pleasant Square and had a look at the club premises just to confirm my opinion, which is that any development here—I do not care what it is —will be an improvement to the amenities of the area.

Perhaps the best development would be for the local authority or the Board of Works to take responsibility for laying this ground out as a public park, or to landscape it, to do up the fences, or even for the ESB to paint their sub-station which is in the grounds. However, I do not think that this is a responsibility which either Dublin Corporation or the Board of Works would be very anxious to assume. Furthermore, I do not think it would be right to deprive the tennis club of the amount of land they intend retaining and which has not been used for the purpose of playing tennis—it is a sort of grass entrance to the club— without making an offer of a suitable open space for them on which to continue as a club, as I believe has been done in other cases.

It seems unlikely, therefore, that either the elected councillors or the Board of Works would be prepared to take on themselves the financial responsibility of doing up the frontage of this property and all around it. The only way in which the area can be improved is by commercial development. Deputy L'Estrange bandied about figures and said that this property was now worth £60,000. I assume that Deputy L'Estrange has been on a local authority but certainly he has not been on a local authority for Dublin city or county or otherwise he would know that the first thing a petrol company will look for when planning to erect a petrol station is that the station will be on the left-hand side of the road as the traffic leaves town. At Mount Pleasant it is on the right-hand side.

The second thing they want to ensure is that the station will not be on a road on which a clearway will operate when catering for the main volume of traffic, which would make it difficult for people not only to cross from the clearway to the station but to get back into a lane again. This could be an argument against giving approval for a filling station but it is also an argument to show that the figures mentioned by Deputy L'Estrange are completely out of the question. No petrol man who is half sane would consider paying anything like £50,000 or £60,000 for that site. I took the opportunity of asking one or two people in the business about this and they shared that view.

Perhaps if some other suggestions had been made to the Minister, they might have been favourably considered. I cannot see how this proposed development will do anything but improve the site, a site which has been an eyesore in my constituency for as long as I can remember, even when I was dancing there as a boy. It is all right to get up here and quote hypothetical figures. It is the same as the man who won the Sweep and because, in some indirect way, somebody carried a poster at the airport supporting one of our Ministers, there was a lot of talk about corruption and jobbery. This will not hold up in the light of cold examination. It is a reasonable assumption that probably hundreds of planning appeals go into the Department of Local Government every week. If I take the three or four of which I may hear and multiply that by 144, even allowing 20 per cent off to cover those Deputies who do nothing, then it is reasonable to assume some hundreds of applications every week. Last week I estimated that one in ten such appeals is approved and I suggested that was not enough. I do not believe local authorities are liberal enough in dealing with planning matters and I do not believe the Department is sufficiently liberal either.

Suppose, for the sake of argument, that Dublin Corporation had power to make a compulsory purchase order in relation to the Grand Canal and suppose that were appealed by the various interested parties to the committee envisaged in this Bill, I take it those who would sit on this committee would be people who would have at least some special knowledge of the problem facing Dublin Corporation in that situation; if they looked at the situation only from the point of view of Dublin Corporation they would uphold the compulsory purchase order; but, when the final responsibility rests with the political head of the Department, then he would have to consider the other matters that would arise in that kind of situation, matters such as the development of the midland waterways.

I have certain points of view on that. They are not relevant at the moment, but what I am trying to get across is that certain buildings may be proposed in an area which no Minister may have taken into consideration. For example, take the development of port facilities in Dublin. In many planning applications and in many planning appeals there will be far more to be considered than the mere local interest and the local amenity. The development of Dublin port is causing some concern to people in the Sandymount area, but it is recognised by everybody that development is essential if Dublin is to continue to prosper. I can visualise a situation in which a planning application will be refused and an appeal will be taken against that refusal from the point of view of a purely local interest. I can see situations in which more might be involved than just the Minister for Local Government. The Minister for Industry and Commerce, the Minister for Transport and Power, the Minister for Labour, the Minister for Agriculture and even the Minister for Finance might all be involved to some degree or other. On occasion the Minister for External Affairs and the Minister for Defence might be involved. Because this particular planning matter is one that impinges on very wide interests I firmly believe the proper person to be the final arbiter is the political head of the Department of Local Government in consultation with his experts and with his colleagues in instances in which his colleagues are concerned.

As I suggested last week, our whole approach to planning must be broadened. The Minister's predecessor and, I think, the Minister himself have talked about greater planning zones. That type of development should be proceeded with as quickly as possible and the necessity of having to appeal should be eliminated as far as possible. I know that when Dublin Corporation bought certain properties in Wood Quay there was a public furore about it. Every conceivable argument was used to try to prove that this entire property should be maintained in its existing Georgian style. It was argued that a certain long-established business would be put out of business. If this Bill were to become law Dublin Corporation would not be able to knock these buildings down in order to construct proper municipal offices.

Every argument was used; the cost of the new building was trotted out. The pattern was identical with that with which we have become so familiar through the years, a pattern very noticeable when Fianna Fáil are in office and not so noticeable when Fianna Fáil are in opposition. The pressure groups allied to the present Opposition are far better organised obviously in this type of thing than we are. Of course, we have far less experience of opposition. Despite the decision that was taken quite some years back very little progress has been made.

Anybody who has had experience as a member of Dublin Corporation must agree that the quickest and best way in which to get efficient corporation administration is by having centralised offices. I trust it is not because of the operations of some pressure group or some appeal against the corporation's decision that the project is being held up. In a situation like that this Bill envisages getting a High Court judge to adjudicate against the local authority of the area in which he has jurisdiction. This kind of pressure and opposition can be very, very dangerous. It is not a good thing to try to shake confidence in the Government of the day. Any government should be given support during its tenure of office. It can account for its stewardship later.

I casually picked up since last week a publication called Fogra. This is published by the combined universities' branches of Fianna Fáil. It is pointed out that the views expressed are those of contributors and should not be taken as representing the views of the Fianna Fáil Party. There is in this publication an extract from the Irish Independent. This is volume 1, No. 3:

The Parties whip themselves into hysteria at the wrongheadedness and shortcomings of their rivals and, having completely undermined confidence in themselves that the people are becoming apathetic about the whole system and, worse still that foreigners and bankers among them are losing confidence.

That seems to me to be appropriate to this Bill because the kind of arguments we have heard in its favour can do nothing except shake confidence in the system of democracy in operation; in other words, the operation of a free society as distinct from a totalitarian one. When I see the same people appearing on different pressure groups with the same type of tactics, I begin to wonder if all the moneys these people have are provided by local voluntary subscription.

The Bill as it is envisaged says:

The Minister shall after consultation with the Board make regulations in relation to the following matters:

(a) the conduct of business by the Board,...

The legal gentlemen can explain this to me. Does this mean the Minister shall consult the Board and say: "You are to conduct yourselves in this way because the Government want this appeal approved or disapproved?"

(Cavan): No, it is not the Television Authority. We do not treat it like that.

But it is in effect setting up a board like the Television Authority with members appointed by the Government. Is it not? What is the difference? Do you not agree that if they came out with a decision which you and maybe I thought was extraordinary, we would give them hell in here?

(Cavan): It is an independent board.

So is the RTE Authority.

(Cavan): It is not allowed to act independently.

The restraints on that Board are clearly laid down here in Acts of the Oireachtas. Anyway, the Bill also says that it should keep records of all its decisions. As I have said, it is reasonable to assume that the number of planning appeals for or against that come into the Department of Local Government every week must run into hundreds. We are now to have a record of its decisions. I suppose we should have these circulated to each Deputy, too, and we can get extra lockers to stack them up.

With regard to Deputy Tully's reference last week I agree with my colleague, Deputy Dunne, that the allowances are insufficient for individual Deputies to have their own research staff. I think they are insufficient for even the leaders of the Opposition Parties to have private research staff and through the inadequacy of these allowances, democracy is being damaged in some way. I would have liked to have done a lot more research on this Bill because I was interested in the last Planning Bill that went through this House. I understood that it would in effect cut down on the number of appeals that would come to the Department of Local Government but it has had the very reverse effect. I hope the Minister will consider having a look at the entire legislation. I do not believe this suggestion would work. I do not believe it is practicable.

It goes on to say that it need not necessarily be three members on this Board, that extra members can be appointed. Therefore you might have seven, eight or nine people trying to adjudicate on a planning appeal such as the one at Mount Pleasant or the one referred to by Deputy L'Estrange in Goatstown.

I feel that the only thing that is of concern to the Opposition is that in some instances a man, by presenting a set of plans in a better way and with a better idea of the final development, may succeed in getting approval where a person with less experience or less appreciation of the official mind it might be referred to to inspect this proposal might fail to get it and that getting this approval may result in a considerable capital gain for the man who made the investment or speculation in development he had in mind. The Minister for Finance in his Budget Statement last year said that he was going to examine the whole position with reference to capital gains and that he would in his Budget, which is due in two or three weeks time, make reference to this whole question of capital gain.

If the concern is that a person by the use of his ingenuity and his psychology in dealing with the official mind that will have to look at his proposals should make a large capital gain, the way to deal with that is through the Department of Finance and not the Department of Local Government. After all this is 1968, the year of Human Rights. Governments, to my mind, have been taking away some human rights little bit by little bit to excess, and I believe that if a man can, by his ingenuity and his investment and by his appraisal of a situation, bring about a situation where he can make some money, he is entitled to do it. To me, profit is not a dirty word. Profit, to my mnd, is an incentive to people to work harder and to get better development in this country and the day we make it a dirty word will be a bad day for the country.

I for one could not in any circumstances see myself giving any merit whatsoever to the contents of this Bill. I feel it was designed with the wrong motive, presented in the wrong way and that it is absolutely impracticable to give effect to it.

I shall be very brief on this. I suppose Deputy Fitzpatrick is anxious to get in to conclude but because I am directly concerned with the administration of planning appeals, and that is what this Bill is all about, I am anxious to say a few words on it.

I think the Minister indicated here that he was open to be convinced by reasonable argument that the system of dealing with planning appeals should be changed. It was Deputy Fitzpatrick who introduced the Bill and I must say he was very reasonable in his general approach to the Bill. Unfortunately, the trend of the debate changed with the entry into the discussion of Deputy Cluskey, who followed Deputy Fitzpatrick. He spent the best part of three-quarters of an hour shouting about corruption and malpractices in dealing with planning appeals, bribery and all kinds of things. Yet, despite the fact that he spent something like three-quarters of an hour on his feet, there were only two cases he could pinpoint. He threatened us with more to come when these would be dealt with. However, he confined himself to the two cases.

It was strange that one of the cases had been dealt with by the Minister when he was replying to his Estimate here since Christmas. He went into great detail to explain the reasons why planning permission was granted in the case of Mount Pleasant Square. The other case was in regard to housing development in the Kilbarrack area, here in Dublin city. The Minister has dealt very effectively with that. Despite the fact that he has, I suppose Deputy Cluskey will not yet be convinced that the Minister, or his predecessor in the case of Kilbarrack, was right. While he expressed the view that even if the Minister came in and answered the charges he was making to his satisfaction, I am afraid we would know from our experience of Deputy Cluskey, despite what the Minister had to say about it even if he satised the House, it is most unlikely he would be able to satisfy the Deputy. However, the debate from time to time rose to higher standards. Although we had a number of people both from the Fine Gael and Labour benches talking about the whole position of planning appeals there were some contributions which were worth listening to during the first three or four days. Deputy Tully is one of those I listened to. He could be regarded as a person, certainly amongst the Labour members, who knows his work and acts accordingly.

The discussion that took place here for the past six or seven weeks brought in most of the Front Bench members of the Fine Gael Party. This was to add weight to some of the charges made by some of the Fine Gael people about corruption in dealing with those planning appeals. While this was going away from the drafting in the Bill and dealing with planning generally, this was worth while because we have all come to agree that planning is a very complex matter and people generally throughout the country are only now becoming plan conscious.

There were suggestions made, and if you were to read through the debates you would see this, that this whole business of planning appeals should be done away with and that all planning should be the business of the local authorities because the charge was made that on a couple of occasions decisions were made by the Minister, to which exception was taken, which were different from those which the planning authorities had already taken. If we accept the right of appeal, it is to be expected that some of the appeals which will be lodged will mean that the decisions of the planning authorities will be reversed. I think about 50 per cent of the total number of appeals which come into the Department of Local Government are approved, or if you like, are granted. That would suggest that as far as the local authorities are concerned justice would not be done if people had not the right of appeal.

One of the things which struck me about Deputy Fitzpatrick's contribution, and it is one of the things I feel very strongly about, is that the individual down the country who is a cottier or small holder who wants to build a porch in front of his house or a back kitchen at the rere of his house, has a proposal which to him is just as important as the building of office blocks in the city of Dublin or anywhere else. When we accept this, it is only fair and right that we should have this right of appeal. If you were to read through the debates we have had on this proposal, you would find that a number of Deputies suggest more or less that we should not have this right at all, that the thing should end with the local authority or if you like that the Minister had not the right to interfere with the decision of the local authority.

One of the justifications for the Bill, according to Deputy Fitzpatrick, was a resolution passed by the Association of Municipal Authorities at their annual conference in Tralee during the past year. I understand that because of the large number of resolutions on the agenda, and that this was towards the back-end of the conference, a large number of the resolutions were passed without a lot of discussion on them.

I recall listening to three members of the Executive of the Municipal Authorities Association in an interview on television and I think it was the Fine Gael man who suggested the reason they passed the resolution was that they would have an opportunity of discussing it with the Minister if it was passed at the conference. If it was not they would not have that opportunity of discussing that aspect of their activities with the Minister prior to this year's annual conference. It really was not in that sense a decision of the Municipal Authorities Association in so far as there was no lengthy debate on it. It was used as an executive opportunity of discussing the matter with the Minister prior to the annual conference this year. That is the only justification I can see in Deputy Fitzpatrick's contribution here to justify this charge.

I am as conscious of difficulties throughout the country, as well as Deputy Fitzpatrick and anyone else and I have not come across a demand on the part of the public for this change. I find that 50 per cent of the people I deal with on planning appeals have to be turned down and many of those are in my own constituency. I am perhaps more conversant with those matters than many other Deputies.

Deputy P.J. O'Donnell came in and made a contribution. I was glad to see him because being a former Minister for Local Government, he would be conversant with the Minister's responsibilities in this regard and the volume of work which this involves. He mentioned the number of appeals he had to deal with and the number of appeals the present Minister has to deal with. He then went on to explain how he dealt with some of those appeals when they came to him. One of the things he said was that in one particular case in my own constituency, where an appeal was lodged and the recommendation was against granting permission, subsequently he decided he would visit the site himself. I do not know what influenced him to visit the site. After visiting the site, he decided that permission could be granted, subject to the resiting of the garage on the particular site. I remember I was a member of Wicklow County Council at the time and we had this appeal. We were one of the counties who were operating town and regional planning at the time. Our county manager informed the council members that the then Minister had upheld an appeal in regard to this particular site. The greatest critics of the Minister at the time were some of the people who are now members of the Fine Gael Party.

I remember defending the Minister by asking what was the point of having the right of appeal if the Minister could not change a decision. There was no point in going through the formality of an appeal if you were going to get the same result. I felt at the time that the Minister was entitled to do what he did. He was quite entitled to go and inspect the site and afterwards to grant permission if he felt he was justified in doing so. This is exactly what we are trying to do, as far as the Minister and myself are concerned. We are trying to deal with the planning appeals we receive in an objective way.

Deputy P. O'Donnell also referred to the fact that he dealt with a lot of those appeals in his own kind of way, by just signing the form. This is a matter entirely for himself and if that is the way he wanted to deal with those, that was his business. I must confess that I agree with him that there is some difficulty. I try to read all the recommendations that are put before me by the officials of the Department. At least I try to read the planning officer's report, as he is the technical person who has to advise. There are times when we disagree with him and there are times when we try to satisfy ourselves that the planning authority's opinion is reasonable to the appellant or the person who is appealing.

During the course of Deputy P. O'Donnell's contribution, he referred to a position developing whereby he would find himself confronted with 100 appeals in one day for signature. That is an extraordinary statement. During his whole term of office, he dealt with 460 appeals altogether. If he could not afford the time to read them all, it was not because of his activities on other Local Government matters because these activities have increased substantially in the interim.

The Minister decided that he would deal with some of the cases to which Deputy O'Donnell had referred and he saw in some decisions of approval given by Deputy P. O'Donnell as Minister for Local Government that there was a question mark after them. There certainly should be a question mark after them. I remember reading, although I cannot say who said it, where some members of the Front Bench of the Fine Gael Party said that only two cases could be pinpointed in Deputy P. O'Donnell's whole term of office. His term of office was something short of three years and in that time he dealt with 460 appeals and there were only two cases about which there was any doubt.

We have dealt with 4,000 appeals in the same period approximately and the Opposition have come up with two cases where there is a doubt in their mind as to whether planning permission was granted. If you were to take it on that basis, the greater offender was Deputy P. O'Donnell. I do not accept that he was an offender because he did what he was entitled to do.

(Cavan): The Minister accused Deputy O'Donnell of all sorts of skulduggery. It is in the report.

He pointed out that there were a number of cases, and there are two cases here.

(Cavan): He accused Deputy O'Donnell of granting permission to a citizen who had been a Member of this House and had voted for the inter-Party Government, thereby giving the innuendo that he voted for him.

The applicant here had been formerly a Member of this House and a supporter of Deputy O'Donnell. As far as the Minister is concerned, he listed two cases and a Member of the Front Bench said that they are the only two cases you can point to during his term of office. I have no desire to go back delving into the filing system in the Custom House to see what Deputy P. O'Donnell did or did not do during his term of office. I defended him in regard to a particular case in County Wicklow with regard to an appeal and his right to reverse the decision of the county council if he thought it was the right thing to do. If we are to accept the principle of the right of appeal, this must be allowed to happen from time to time.

Deputy N. Lemass said he was in favour of the passage of the 1963 Bill through the Dáil and he anticipated at that time that the numbers of planning appeals would not be so great. That was my opinion too. The more planning applications granted, the less planning appeals we would have. I understand now that 66 per cent of the local planning authorities have their development plans prepared; they are now actually made, and the rest are in draft form. I suppose when the local authorities and the public generally become more accustomed to the idea of planning, we can anticipate a fall in the number of planning appeals.

You will be snowed under with work associated with that planning before you are finished.

The Deputy as a member of a local authority, should know that a local authority are quite entitled to amend their development plan from time to time if they think they were wrong in their assessment in the first instance. It will be a matter for the local authority to change their plan to keep pace with the times. I do not anticipate a substantial increase in the number of planning appeals. I suppose it is true to say that most of the planning appeals we receive here are lodged because the person concerned believes he was right and that the planning authority's rejection in the first instance was wrong. In some cases the appellant had good technical advice available to him, and this technical adviser might be regarded as an authority in his own field. He, on the one hand, will advise his client and encourage him to lodge an appeal and the appeal comes to us in the Department and again the matter is considered by technical staff, who, as far as we are concerned, are the tops in the country in their profession and the best available to us at the moment. It is a question of the technical people differing and somebody losing out on it.

Doctors differ and patients die. Planners differ from one county to another, even in the matter of providing contacts with the planning authority officials and the Minister's officials in the Custom House. However, the number of planning appeals we receive would be an indication to me in deciding that the planning authorities are not as liberal as they should be in dealing with the original proposals. The Minister and I have tried to get across to the local planning authorities that there should be more consultation with the original applicants in the first instance and, if this were done, we might find ourselves with a substantial reduction in the number of planning appeals.

I think we can take it that up to 50 per cent of appeals that are subsequently upheld by the Minister could very readily have been approved of in the first instance by the planning authority. If that happened, we would have much less to deal with in the Department of Local Government. If you read the debates, you will find that it was generally agreed that planning authorities should have a more liberal approach in dealing with applicants. Some of the time I wonder why when a matter is being dealt with locally it is not thought about as a case on appeal. However, we have to keep pushing our point of view in the hope that local authorities will become more liberal in their approach and, in that way, that a greater number of applicants will succeed, thus resulting in a reduction in the number of people who have to appeal to the Minister.

Deputy L'Estrange referred to a case —he had already referred to a number of cases but I was not here the week previously——

(Cavan): You were wasting your time the week previously.

(Cavan): In Wicklow.

We will find in two years that we will be there with a chance and you will not. The figures were not all that bad. However, Deputy L'Estrange referred to a case in Athlone and said that the Minister reversed the decision of the local planning authority at the behest of the Minister for Justice. That is one of the cases I dealt with myself. The Minister had nothing to do with it, except, of course, that he has to take the rap for the action of his Parliamentary Secretary, who was myself in this instance.

I have no doubt whatever that in this case we were right.

The individual concerned lived in the end house of a short terrace. He applied in 1966 for permission to extend out over his front garden, towards the footpath, to build a room. He got permission from the local authority. Subsequently he changed his mind and decided he would seek permission to convert the building into a licensed premises. He had to go back to the local authority and, on this occasion, they knocked him, rejected his application on the ground that he was extending beyond the building line, though previously they had given him permission to do what he wanted in terms of building.

The reason they refused him was that his proposal was to build beyond the building line. It so happens that at the other end of the terrace, there is a business premises and the planning authority had already given permission there, though it meant extending to the same line. The question of the building line did not arise in that case—they were prepared to give permission for a similar type of building on the same terrace. What we had to ask ourselves was whether the planning authority had been unreasonable in the second case. Personally I felt they had been unreasonable. The question at issue was that on the one hand the building was to be used as part of the man's residence and on the other, as a business premises.

The type of business that man intended to carry on was the subject of a licence application which would have to be decided in court and I saw nothing whatever wrong in granting permission for the building. I had no say, of course, in deciding whether the building could become a public house; this was a matter entirely for the courts to decide. However, planning permission was granted in this case and I believe I was right in so doing. I should like to let Deputy L'Estrange know that it was not the Minister, that it was I, and I repeat that I have no doubt I did the right thing in this case. There are other aspects of that case which I could mention but I do not wish to do so.

The Minister has dealt fully with the Bill and what it proposes. As he said, he is open to conviction as to whether the system proposed is not a better one than that which we have and which ties up a lot of the time of the Minister and me. As far as I am concerned, I deal with all applications as I see them. I go into the files or the parts of them that matter—the recommendations of the Departmental officers and the reports of the planning inspectors. Having read all that data, I decide whether I should add my name to the draft decision submitted to me because I am conscious when rejecting any appeal that the turning down of an application can create hardship for individuals.

For instance, a case came before me from a small farmer in the West who wanted to build a cow byre on a small piece of ground in front of his house, bordered by the road on two sides. The official view was that we should reject the application because the land might be needed at some future time for road widening. In the case I have just mentioned, however, I thought rejection might create a terrible hardship for a small farmer with 20 to 25 acres of land. Accordingly, I asked the inspector to go down again and have another look at the place, to go to the farmer and see if there was any way we could meet him. That has been my approach to planning appeals and I do not think there is anything unreasonable in adopting that attitude.

There are other cases when Members of the Opposition as well as of my own Party make representations to us in planning appeals. I do not think it is all that bad to make such representations to the Minister on behalf of constituents. One would gather here that it is a terrible crime—we can read it in the debates—that it is the worst form of skulduggery for a Deputy to make representations to a Minister or Parliamentary Secretary on behalf of a constituent. I do not accept that. As public representatives we are entitled to make representations on behalf of a constituent no matter what his political persuasion. It does not always happen—and why should it—that a constituent with Fianna Fáil leanings would go to a Fianna Fáil Deputy or that a constituent with Fine Gael leanings would go to a Fine Gael Deputy. If a man thinks his application will succeed by going to a Fianna Fáil TD or other Fianna Fáil public representative, that is where he will go. When election day comes, he can go somewhere else and nobody can seriously object to it.

However, the attitude of some Deputies speaking here is that this form of representation by Deputies should not be tolerated or entertained. I do not accept that. As far as I am concerned, the fact that a TD has made representations on behalf of a person who has an appeal before the Department might help me to look more closely at it to satisfy myself that I am doing the right thing. I have not been beyond speaking to people who have made these representations to see if I can get over the difficulties.

I can refer to a couple of cases. A prominent member of the Opposition was dealing with a case and he and his client called at my house. Within a few days, I met the Deputy for the constituency whose attitude was that the person concerned was getting a raw deal. That is generally what happens— it is represented that people whose applications have been rejected by local authorities have got raw deals—and it is up to me to adjudicate and to see that any wrong is righted. That is what we do and that is all we intend to do.

This Bill as drafted is not acceptable to the Government. At the same time, the Minister has indicated that he is having a look at this whole question of the determination of appeals and that he hopes to come up with something in the not too distant future. In the meantime, I should like to lay the ghost about all this corruption that is alleged to be going on in dealing with planning appeals as far as I am concerned—and I have no reason to believe but that the Minister also deals with planning appeals after giving due consideration to the appellant's case on the one hand and the reports submitted to him on the other hand. We try to be reasonable and fair. The fact that we have been doing this is, I believe, one of the reasons the Fianna Fáil Government have remained for so long in office.

(Cavan): It has been recognised in this country as far back as 1934, at least, that some form of planning control is necessary in order to avoid unsightly building and haphazard layout of building throughout the country. The Town and Regional Planning Act was, I think, introduced and enacted in that year. Under it, the planning authorities were required to provide a plan. That Act was amended, I think, by an Act of 1939. We know that the whole system under those two Acts was very loose. Indeed, some 15 or 16 years after the Act of 1934 had reached the Statute Book, some citizen of Dublin sued the corporation in the High Court for an order to compel them to carry out their duties under the Act of 1934. I think very few local authorities did, in fact, comply with the terms of that Act.

That situation being as it then was, with these Acts on the Statute Book which were really never implemented and operating preliminary plans in a quite unsatisfactory manner, the Planning and Development Act, 1963, was passed by this House after much discussion. Despite strenuous efforts by the Fine Gael spokesman on Local Government at the time—Deputy Jones—to have some sort of machinery inserted in it to deal with appeals, such as we now propose, it was allowed to pass through the Houses of the Oireachtas without those adequate or proper appeal provisions.

At this stage I want to say, in order to clear the air, that we in the Fine Gael Party entirely approve of proper planning. We believe it would be an outrage to let the citizens of the country build higgledy-piggledy, any way they like. We believe that if the beauty of our country is to be preserved, and its appearance improved, there must be planning control. For that reason, we approved of the Planning and Development Act, 1963, and did our best to improve it and to send it out of this House a better measure than when it came into it. However, the Minister for Local Government of the day resisted the best endeavours of Deputy Jones to provide an independent system of appeal which would do justice and which would appear to do justice, a system which would be divorced from politics and which would not appear to operate under political pressure.

While I have said that we believe in planning, and believe in proper planning, we realise that a proper system of planning may operate to increase the value of property tremendously or to decrease the value of property tremendously. It can make a man or break a man. That is probably all right so long as it is done fairly and squarely and above board and so long as it is not open to any abuses.

Now, we are dealing here only with appeals against decisions of the planning authorities on planning matters. I accept the word of the Minister for Local Government that only about seven per cent of all planning applications come to the Department of Local Government by way of appeal. I say, however, that if only one per cent came, it is still a very important business. If only one per cent came, that one per cent should be adjudicated upon fairly, in a manner which would inspire public confidence, in a manner which would make it impossible for anybody to make the charges that have been made since the Second Stage of this Bill was taken up on 31st January last.

Now, as I have said, the Planning and Development Act, 1963, was passed and, under it, very considerable power was conferred on planning authorities. Practically any alteration in property has to be the subject of a planning application. If a man wants to erect a pair of piers at the entrance to his property he must apply to the planning authority for permission to do so. If he wants to build a house, he must apply to the planning authority for permission to do so. If he wants to change the colour of his house, he must first apply for permission from the planning authority to do so. If he is thinking of using some of his land beside the town for building purposes, he must apply to the planning authority for permission to do so. As I say, the result of the decision of that planning authority can be to increase the value of his land tremendously or very much to decrease it.

The Planning Bill, 1963, provided that an appeal would lie from various decisions of the planning authority but that that appeal would be to the Minister for Local Government who would investigate the matter or give his decision on it, at any rate, behind closed doors and without, in many cases, giving any reasons for his decision. It was inevitable that that system would not give satisfaction. It is the understatement of the year to say that that appeals system was the subject of much criticism since the 1963 Bill became law. It did not give satisfaction. There have been suspicions that political influence was what counted rather than the merits of the case. Indeed, during this debate we have had Deputy Molloy, for example, saying that he deals with at least six planning appeals per week. I am not going to be offensive to Deputy Molloy but, I ask, what qualifications has Deputy Molloy or any other Deputy, unless he happens to be a town planner by career, to deal with these appeals? What expert knowledge has he? What qualifications? Is it not obvious that the only qualification he has is that he is a member of the Government Party and is in a position to go to the Minister and to use his influence? Deputy Molloy has even told us that supporters of the Fine Gael Party in Galway come to him rather than to their own Deputy. Is it not obvious that the reason that a Fine Gael supporter or a Labour supporter goes to a Fianna Fáil Deputy in order to get him to make representations on a matter of this sort is that he believes that that Deputy has more influence with his Minister than a member of the Opposition would have?

We had Deputy Lemass the other day telling us that a constituent of his was about to buy some property in Dublin. Whom does he consult as to the advisability of buying the property or as to his chances of getting planning permission? Does he consult his architect, his town planner or engineer? Not at all. He consults his Fianna Fáil Deputy. He brings Deputy Lemass up and, according to Deputy Lemass, shows him the property and says: "I am thinking of buying this. What are my chances of getting planning permission to do such and such a thing with it?" That is the sort of thing that gives rise to disquiet. That is the sort of thing that created public unrest and lack of confidence in this system.

The Fine Gael Party introduced this Bill, not as Deputy Lemass said the other evening as a gimmick on the eve of the Wicklow and Clare by-elections, but as far back as 22nd June, 1967, and, again, it was not introduced by a number of senior counsel in this Party, as has been said during the debate; it was introduced by me as the Party spokesman on Local Government, supported by Deputy Jones who fought so valiantly to put the same provision into the 1963 Bill, Deputy Ryan who is familiar with Dublin city, Deputy Clinton who is a former Party spokesman on Local Government and Deputy Barry from the constituency of Cork.

We introduced this Bill in order to meet a public demand which has been in existence since the 1963 Bill became law. I have said that there is disquiet in the country. I have said that there is unrest in the country, that there is suspicion about the way that these appeals are being decided. We hear a great deal of talk about the mass media of communication but the newspapers in this country take up only those subjects that are agitating the minds of the public. When such noncommitted independent newspapers as the Irish Times and the Irish Independent agitate for an amendment of the method of determining appeals, the country is entitled to take notice of it. When the Irish Times campaigns, as it is entitled to do and as in my opinion it has a duty to do when it fears that there is a grave public scandal, the Minister for Local Government refers to them as craw-thumping hypocrites. Indeed, not alone do the newspapers that are free and unfettered think it is their duty to ventilate this disgrace and this public outrage but the State-sponsored television station, Radio Telefís Éireann thinks that it is its duty—and I do not think anybody can accuse that form of mass media of being anti-Fianna Fáil or of being pro-Fine Gael—to focus public attention on several cases where queer decisions had been given, to put it no stronger than that.

These are the circumstances in which the Fine Gael Party decided to introduce this Bill. We introduced it, as I have said, on 22nd June, 1967, but, because it had to take its place in the queue of Private Members' Business, it did not get as far as a Second Reading, until 31st January this year, when the Second Reading was moved by me in, as the Parliamentary Secretary has said, a reasonable manner. Indeed, other Members of this House have said that I introduced the measure in a reasonable and reasoned fashion. The first person to say that was the Minister for Health, who was the first speaker on behalf of the Government. He paid me compliments on the manner in which I had introduced the Bill. It is significant that the last speaker on behalf of the Government was the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Local Government and he concluded on the same note. For that I am grateful.

However, this debate has gone on from 31st January until today. It has occupied 14 sessions of Private Members' Time of 1½ hours each. I make that a total of 21 hours. I want to suggest to the House in some detail before I conclude that this debate has made an unanswerable case for the system of appeals which we propose in this Bill. The Minister for Health said that there was a lot of merit in the suggestions I put forward, that they deserve serious consideration. That, I say, will justify the Bill. But if one thing more than anything else justifies this Bill, it is the speech of the Minister for Local Government, who spoke for several hours on this Second Stage debate. He justifies the Bill and demonstrates beyond doubt that it is essential. He spent a great portion of his time attacking one of his predecessors as Minister, Deputy P. O'Donnell. I have instances—I will come to them later—in which he accused Deputy P. O'Donnell of corrupt practices, of giving decisions for wrong purposes and being influenced by his friends and by ex-Deputies and supporters. The Minister for Local Government made those charges against Deputy P. O'Donnell and we had counter-charges made against the present Minister by members of the Labour Party and of the Fine Gael Party. Is that not more than justification for this measure?

It is entirely unreasonable in a country so small as this, where everybody knows everybody else, that an appeal should lie to a Minister for Local Government or to any Minister on a matter of such importance. The Minister for Lands does not decide what land the Land Commission is to acquire. That is decided by an independent tribunal known as the Lay Commissioners, who have fixity of tenure and who cannot be removed from office unless for grave and serious reasons. The Minister for Local Government does not come down to Cavan and decide what compensation is to be paid to the owner of land who has his land acquired for house-building. That is decided by a quasi-judicial officer, an arbitrator appointed under an Act of 1916. He decides the compensation to be paid. The Minister for Finance does not conduct income tax appeals because he has a vested interest in them, just as the Minister for Local Government would have a vested interest in the payment of compensation for land. The Special Commissioners on Income Tax sit and adjudicate on that.

Yet we are handing over here to the political head of a Department the right to adjudicate on whether a hotel is to be built here or here, whether that hotel, which would add perhaps £30,000 or £40,000 to the value of the land, should be built or not. Take one case. We had the matter of the hotel it was proposed to build beside the Rock of Cashel. The Minister for Local Government told us about that case at great length. He said he was worried about it. He went down and inspected the site himself and made up his mind. He said tremendous pressure was brought on him from this and that political Party. Do you know what struck me? I said to myself: Suppose, God forbid, in that constituency of Tipperary there had been a by-election six months before that: It was quite on the cards and not at all unlikely that the Minister for Local Government, who is general director of elections for the Fianna Fáil Party, would have been by virtue of that office stationed in the town of Cashel directing the by-election there. It was also quite possible that the appellant in the hotel case might have been the best political friend of the Minister in the town of Cashel or, on the other hand, he might have been his arch-enemy. In whichever position the appellant found himself, what confidence could the people of Cashel have in a decision given by a Minister for Local Government who came down in that capacity to a town where he had presided a few short months previously as a political boss? The matter does not bear serious consideration for a moment.

As I say, there have been charges and counter-charges. I feel I must go into these charges and counter-charges. I will not go into the merits of them except in one case which appeared in court. I think it is sufficient for me to show to the House that members of the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party are charging the present Minister for Local Government and his predecessor with malpractices and that the present Minister for Local Government is charging Deputy P. O'Donnell with corrupt practices and malpractices— without going into the merits and demerits of them— in order to prove conclusively that a system which leaves itself open to that sort of charge could not inspire confidence in any section of our citizens.

What we propose in this Bill in substitution for the present system is a simple, informal, inexpensive tribunal presided over by a judge of the Circuit Court, the High Court or the Supreme Court. I think it is most likely that he would be a Circuit Court judge. When the Fianna Fáil party throw up their hands in horror at the appointment of a judge, do they forget the Army Pensions Arbitration Board under which Judge Sheehy and later some other judges went around the country in an informal way deciding who was or was not entitled to a pension? When the Fianna Fáil Party want to add weight to or bolster up a bad case or to inspire confidence in a doubtful measure of their own, do they not introduce a judge? Have they not introduced into the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution measure—which they know they cannot carry in the country—in order to lend weight to it and make it more palatable to the people, to inspire confidence to try and get it through this House and through the country, a Commission to outline the constituencies, a Commission to be presided over by a judge? What is the object of that? Surely it is to say that if a judge is the man in charge things will be done fairly. Of course, the only difference between what I suggest and what the Fianna Fáil Party suggest in the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution Bill, is that they will have an appeal from the judge back to the Fianna Fáil Party, and I do not propose that here. I propose that the appeal be to a tribunal presided over by a judge assisted by two assessors.

Debate adjourned.
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