I hope yesterday's television style debate on this Bill is not indicative of what it will be like in the House if television ever comes into it. The debate was punctuated by quorum calls every ten minutes, with the quorums taking the place of the commercials. Yesterday in the House we had an extraordinary situation even though it was contrived. There were deliberate attempts to put on a show probably for particular reasons. We had the spectacle of the Leader of the Opposition thumping his desk in frustration and then the Fianna Fáil Party left the House. The quorums did not bother me because I was here from 3.30 p.m. They succeeded in making the speeches of the Opposition very disjointed.
The three Opposition's spokespersons — Deputy Molloy, Deputy Lenihan and Deputy Fitzgerald — more or less discussed the same point. Each of them concentrated on the de-politicisation of An Bord Pleanála. Deputy Fitzgerald, who has been thrice blessed in this House in that he was a Minister three times, invited members of the Labour Party and the Fine Gael Party to select and appoint Labour people and Fine Gael people to boards such as this and said that he did not see anything wrong with doing that and that when Fianna Fáil were in power they could do the same thing. His only requirement was that the people appointed should be good people. I expressed my shock at this suggestion which would continue in existence of political jobbery in the State. I asked several times yesterday why it is that Fianna Fáil do not want this board or any other board to be de-politicised. I wanted to know why it is that Fianna Fáil are so worried about this, considering all the dissatisfaction there has been in the planning area over the years and the dissatisfaction that has been expressed in public and on the media with the present board as constituted and its workings. Does it hit at a power root? Were the antics in the House yesterday a result of the exposure of a very sensitive political nerve? Perhaps that is the case.
Fianna Fáil have been in power for the greater part of the last 60 years. If they do not want Government influence in regard to the appointment of boards and positions to be removed maybe they have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. I would not like to think that is the situation but there is a lot of evidence around to show that over the years it has been to the advantage of the Government in power to have this political largesse available to them and they have distributed it generously throughout the country. The tentacles of this practice have reached right down through Irish society. Making this board independent is another step in removing that influence, that control. These tentacles have stretched right down into every sub-post office, every Garda station and every Department of the civil service throughout the State. I for one would be very pleased to see this influence cut off. If we have exposed a nerve and the patient is in pain the only thing we can do is to deal with it and find other areas where political influence and patronage exist.
The last time Labour and Fine Gael were in power they managed to close off some of those. They established the DPP and set up An Bord Pleanála. Every legal brief that was ever handed out in the Law Library for years was handed out to known members of political parties and some people never got the opportunities of getting a brief. The same applies to the judicial appointments, which have been a scandal in this State since 1922. Only recently have there been one or two appointments that have not been political. Up to that every single judicial appointment, without exception, was a political appointment. A big furore was kicked up here yesterday by Deputy Lenihan as to why a certain retired judge was not to be appointed to this board. The judge is in his mid-seventies. We have the situation where people are waiting for three and four years to get their cases into the High Court and we have been removing judges and putting them on boards like this. We have actually been appointing barristers to the bench for the specific purpose of appointing them as chairman of An Bord Pleanála. That was not a good appointment. It is not a good idea and I do not think it is necessary for the chairman to be a judge or a lawyer. I am not sure that lawyers are always the right people to choose for these positions. The legal profession is an area that I hope this House will some day debate. It reminds me of the story of the two farmers fighting over a cow. One is pulling her by the head and the other is pulling her by the tail and the lawyer is milking her. That situation needs examination in Irish life.
This attempt by the Minister to set up an independent board must be welcomed. Both Deputy Lenihan and Deputy Molloy said they will resist the setting up of this board and that if they get back into power they will remove the members of the board. They said they had not in the past ever removed members of boards set up by the Government. What they seem to be saying is that they wish to retain the power of appointing people while they are in power and that we can do it when we are in power and they will not argue about it. In fact, Deputy Fitzgerald, to his shame, actually said that and put it on the record of the House.
Deputy Molloy referred to the Rents Restriction Act and the setting up of a rates tribunal. He said that I had no understanding of or sympathy for the people who are suffering under the situation and that this is what we should be discussing instead of this Bill. I had not at that stage made any comment about the rents tribunal or anything else and therefore I want to refute Deputy Molloy's statement. Deputy Molloy said his intention was to change all boards. The appointment by Government seems to suit Fianna Fáil because in the past it was a method of staying in power. I do not think that is true at present. Deputy Molloy also misinterpreted remarks made on this side of the House when someone said Fianna Fáil would never again get into power to make the changes he had suggested. I think it was suggested that Fianna Fáil on their own may never get back to power and that they will not easily make the changes which he and Deputy Lenihan proposed.
When the planning appeal board was set up and decisions were removed from the Minister, a great sigh of relief was breathed throughout the country by people who were interested in planning and who were aware of abuses of the planning laws. Did Deputy Molloy also breath a sigh of relief? Maybe he was happy with the standards in Galway but many people are not. There has been recent media publicity concerning section 4 in Galway. I hope that the setting up of this independent board will set a good example which will filter through the whole planning set-up in the country and that people will take decisions seriously, honestly and expertly. Terrible decisions were made here in the past. The city of Dublin has been mutilated by bad planning. We have been spared worse excesses throughout the rest of the country mainly because it is sparsely populated. Nothing much can be done about Dublin now but the rest of the country can learn by seeing what happened there. It is essential that we come to grips with the problem and the place to start is at the top. We are attempting to do that in this Bill.
I wonder if Deputy Molloy objected to the fact that appeals were removed from the Minister by the setting up of An Bord Pleanála because Fianna Fáil Deputies made very strong play yesterday about retaining power in the hands of the Government and warning that we would rue the day that we made it independent.
