Deputy Jim Mitchell moved the adjournment of the debate.
Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, 1991: Second Stage (Resumed).
Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."
I understand that the Minister wishes to say a further word because of something he omitted earlier on.
On this occasion it appears that the Deputy knows more than the Chair.
I thank Deputy Mitchell for affording me the opportunity to refer to one further matter which I had intended to address at the outset of the debate. I wish to let Deputies know that I intend to bring forward a Committee Stage amendment proposing increases in the maximum fines that may be imposed under the Planning Acts. At present the maximum fine on conviction on indictment is £10,000. This would apply in the case of very serious offences such as carrying out development, including demolition, without the proper permission. I consider that recent events have shown that the present maximum fine may not be sufficient deterrent to developers intent on flouting the law. Accordingly, I will be proposing a new limit of £1 million. I will propose also that the maximum fine for a summary offence should be raised from £800 to £1,000.
I am glad that this Bill is before the House, if only because it gives the House an opportunity for a wide-ranging debate on questions affecting the built environment. It is right to have this debate in parallel with the debate on the Environmental Protection Agency Bill which addresses many environmental questions but which is deficient in dealing with question on the built environment.
However, this Bill as it stands is potentially unconstitutional and could worsen planning. I welcome in principle any attempt to tighten up the time-scale for planning decisions and appeals but I strongly oppose short cuts in the planning system, and parts of this Bill are planning short cuts. The Bill is defective in that it does not commit the necessary staff and other resources to the board to ensure that deadlines are met and therefore many time limits could be reached without the board having had time for a proper analysis. Moreover, the rights of appeal of first, second and third parties against decisions of the local authority could in many circumstances be greatly restricted by the provisions in this Bill.
With regard to staffing and other resources for An Bord Pleanála, given the history of budgets in recent years and the sort of decisions forced on Governments to meet budgetary deadlines, just like the recent decision to prematurely sell shares in Greencore to help the budgetary arithmetic, it is entirely possible and almost likely, given the outlook for the 1993 budget, that there will be further cutbacks in the public service. For that reason already, many laws enacted by this House are not enforced or are inadequately enforced. Very often lack of staff and finance is the most pressing reason why the intentions of this House are not put into effect. It is ironic that this is happening at a time of record unemployment. On Committee Stage I will propose amendments to ameliorate peoples' fears and to remove any constitutional doubts.
The Bill is also defective in that it fails to make any provision to make An Bord Pleanála democratically accountable. In order to achieve accountability I will propose four amendments on Committee Stage. I will propose that a Dáil environment committee be established and that An Bord Pleanála will be subject to its scrutiny, not in relation to any specific decision but in relation to general planning policy, efficiency and fairness. I will also propose that the board's power to initiate material contraventions of county or county borough development plans in their appeal decisions will be removed — in other words, the board will not be permitted to breach development plan zonings except in consultation with the elected local authority. I will also propose that local authorities will be empowered by a two-thirds majority vote to require the board to appear before them and to answer questions in relation to appeal decisions in their functional areas. I will also require the publication of the board's inspector's report on each appeal case. Those amendments to deal with An Bord Pleanála performances, and to make them more answerable, will greatly improve the planning process and public participation in planning matters.
There are other defects in this Bill, particularly its failure to distinguish between routine planning applications — for instance, domestic extensions and large-scale applications for new housing or industrial estates. The smaller applications should have less restrictive requirements applied and they should be put on a fast track. This should be the case not only in respect of the planning applications process but also in relation to the building by-law process or in future building regulations. There needs to be a clear time limit and a much speedier process for these routine applications which do not cause any difficulty in the vast majority of cases.
A matter which has troubled a great number of public representatives and the public at large is the suspicion of corruption in the planning process in certain areas. It is my experience that in general the overall performance of local planning officials, the elected local authorities and An Bord Pleanála has been of a high standard but it is still open to corruption and suspicion. The changes last year in the requirements for section 4 motions in planning and rezoning matters are an improvement, but there is still a large cloud hanging over certain decisions in certain areas in recent years. I am surprised and disappointed that the new Minister for the Environment did not see this as an issue to be addressed in his first speech on planning and development matters. Many of the section 4 rezonings approved by Dublin County Council up to last year have left a very poor taste. Other planning decisions, especially in Dublin but also elsewhere, have been the subject of well-informed private discussions for some time.
Unfortunately many of those who could best give evidence of corruption in the planning process may themselves be compromised by the fact that the very nature of their best evidence would incriminate themselves. A strong case exists for some form of amnesty power to be granted to the DPP for those guilty of minor planning corruption as a tradeoff for substantial evidence of more serious planning corruption. I would urge the Minister to consider this point for inclusion on Committee Stage. I do not wish to dwell any further on this matter, except to say that the recent spate of public scandals has seriously undermined public confidence in our political and administrative process. One of the key areas in which there has been a `drip drip' effect of well-founded suspicion is the area of planning decisions and appeals, material contraventions and some zoning decisions. I hesitate to propose a commission of inquiry because of the cost and the ineffectiveness of that mode of operations but we should consider an amnesty in return for evidence.
The decision to impose a five-year limit on the life of any planning application was generally welcomed. It had the benefit of encouraging early development and discouraging on going dereliction and undeveloped sites. However, it has also been grossly unfair and unjust in a particular type of case about which I have received correspondence and representations from all parts of the country. It is particularly unfair in the case of less well-off people who may have bought a site and been unable to raise the money to build a house within the five-year limit. Such people lose their planning permission in that case. Their inability to build may have been due to the loss of a job, for example. The expiry of the planning permission has been a severe penalty for many people. I know several people who are in severe financial difficulties. They raised money to buy a site in the expectation that they would soon be able to raise further funds to build a house, but they found that because of changes in agricultural incomes or loss of employment they were not in a position to proceed. They then lost the planning permission. Sometimes they were refused permission on reapplication because of a change of heart on the part of the planners. Most of the sites in question had been acquired at a price which took into account the planning permission; they were sold at the development price rather than the agricultural price. There is an injustice in these instances and accordingly I intend to propose an amendment on Committee Stage which in the case of single house developments would reinstate the validity of any planning permission extant at any time in the past ten years or a further period of two years from the enactment of this legislation in order to allow the aggrieved parties one further opportunity to retrieve this loss. I hope the Minister will accept my amendment.
There has been a great deal of discussion during the past six or nine months on the role of local authorities. We had the Bill recognising local authorities which purported to delegate more power to local authorities, to remove the ultra vires rule, to give them a representational role and to move decision-making to the lowest level. Fine Gael have argued persistently that unless we delegate fund raising powers we cannot delegate real powers. The two are inextricably bound and governed by the principle that he who pays the piper calls the tune. I am very strongly committed, as are Fine Gael, to the principle of delegating downwards decision-making powers. That includes the delegation of discretion in relation to the rate support grant, the road fund grant and the national lottery grant.
I acknowledge that the Government have taken on board our proposal that national lottery grants should be made en bloc to local authorities to permit the disbursal of those grants locally at the discretion of the authority. I very much favour that trend. It is the sort of policy which, if pursued fully, would liberate the local authorities and transform them from generally inert bodies to dynamic entities which would further the regrowth of this economy and society.
The principle that local people should have local power over local matters is crucial in all aspects of local government but particularly in relation to planning matters. I proposed earlier that An Bord Pleanála should be accountable or answerable in some democratic way, but there is a great need to take further steps to permit maximum participation by local people in local planning matters. There is a need to improve public awareness of planning application and appeals which potentially affect them. The provision of the Bill are inadequate in that respect. I propose that, in future, local authorities be required to publish each week, a full list of all planning applications received, in the same newspapers, and in a fixed place so that people will know where to look for the list of planning applications. I also propose that clearly visible signs of a standard design and lay-out, be posted at all entrances to buildings or sites, the subject of such planning applications or appeals, that such signs be put in place for a fixed period, of a determined size, so that they cannot be mistaken.
We must remember that local authorities constitute the principle vehicles of our planning laws. Yet much of the worst dereliction in many of our cities and towns derives from two factors, one, long term road plans or aspirations of local authority officials and, second, from the lack of any pro-active development unit within such local authorities. Indeed these are specifications one might well have expected would be included in any planning and development Bill.
I have in mind in particular Dublin but these comments apply equally to other cities and towns. For example, the Dublin quays, from the East Link Bridge to Heuston Station could form a magnificent spine right across the city centre which, properly planned and developed, could transform our city in every respect.
When our party were in Government we introduced the Urban Renewal Bill, 1986, since enacted, whose provisions designated large stretches of the quays for redevelopment. Unfortunately, the provisions of that Bill did not go far enough. Admittedly, at the same time, we established the Metropolitan Streets Commission, giving them the task of uplifting the cross spine of the city, from O'Connell Street, across by D'Olier Street and Westmoreland Street up to Grafton Street. Regrettably that commission were abolished by the incoming minority Fianna Fáil Government in 1987 so that the very good work in train was halted in its tracks.
The continued dereliction of Dublin's quays must be a matter of the gravest public concern to all who live in or love Dublin. It is true to say that the provisions of the Urban Renewal Act led to a certain amount of development along the quays, some individual developments not at all bad in their own right. Such has been that development, which covers a small portion of the quays only, it has been unco-ordinated, no one building co-ordinated with the adjoining one, no overall theme or style to the quays; it is a hotch-potch. A major opportunity was lost, with the implementation of the provisions of the Urban Renewal Act and the establishment of the Metropolitan Streets Commission, not to require one or other of them, or both, to seek an overall design for the city's quays running from Heuston Station to the East Link Bridge accompanied by a pro-active planning and development unit within Dublin Corporation or, by way of the reinstatement of the Metropolitan Streets Commission, to seek developers to put such plans into effect. Apart from grand schemes for locations such as Dublin's quays — and there will be other places in Dublin and other cities and towns where that sort of co-ordinated plan or internationally-competitive design will be required if we are to maximise the potential transformation of our cities and towns — there are smaller areas in need of pro-active development to be undertaken by such a unit within respective local authorities.
In the past few weeks I walked about certain parts of my constituency of Dublin Central with residents and planning officials of Dublin Corporation. It is a very historic part of the city, where residents for five, six or more generations are interspersed with small factories, old mills and the like, interspersed also with many derelict buildings and undeveloped sites. Those undeveloped buildings and sites are owned by different people, many of whom do not have much means and, even when they have, the development of one small site in their ownership might not make much financial sense to them, so the dereliction continues. I have inquired of Dublin Corporation, at the planning committee meetings which I attend, of planning officials privately and of the urban renewal section thereof in their development unit, whether there is anybody — and I am thinking now of the area of Kilmainham in particular — saying: "This is what we want for Kilmainham: to blend in with the Royal Hospital, with Kilmainham Jail, with Kilmainham Tower, with Islandbridge House and the approaches to the quays; this is highly desirable; that is what we want."
Such officials should consult with owners of such properties in an endeavour to persuade them to agree to such plans and their promotion. Unfortunately, no such unit exists, no such official exists in the planning department of Dublin Corporation. They do not have somebody who could even conceive such an overall development plan for an area and promote it. Rather it is left to individual planning applications. Almost always, when planning applications are lodged for neighbouring sites they are absolutely unrelated. Usually this means that there will be a house of one design right beside another of a totally different design, a house with one facade right beside another with a totally different facade; one house built with, say, a reddish-type brick right beside another with a yellowish-type brick, a hotch-potch, resulting from poor planning. The individual buildings will have reasonable merit in their own right but, once one is faced with varying planning applications in respect of many neighbouring sites, the final impact on any one area can leave much to be desired.
It will clearly be seen there is a need for a pro-active development unit within local authorities. I propose that such units be incorporated in the provisions of this Bill. I will be tabling amendments on Committee Stage, giving local authorities not only a role but a duty to take a pro-active stance in planning matters and, where appropriate — for instance in the case of Dublin's quays — to have an overall design objective. Members might think this is pie in the sky but I might add that this is not new thinking. For example, in past centuries the Wide Streets Commission were established, whose role was to achieve just this type of overall effect or design for our city. Indeed many of our Georgian squares and wider boulevards, now such a treasured part of our city, were achieved by those Wide Streets Commissioners. We had a similar role in mind when we established the Metropolitan Streets Commission in 1986. The only valid criticism of their establishment was that we were taking that role away from the local authority. I would argue strongly the urgent need to have the idea of the Metropolitan Streets Commission embedded in our planning laws, indeed in the psyche and conception of the role of our planning officials.
I should like to deal with some other matters in the planning sphere before dealing with the points made by the Minister for the Environment. As I said, a central theme of Fine Gael local government policy is the restoration of power and influence over planning matters to local people. Otherwise the quality of such people's lives could be seriously affected in ways they cannot influence or redress. On the other hand, Fine Gael are conscious that there can be vexatious objections to planning proposals. We do not intend to promote, encourage or facilitate vexatious opposition to proposals which are entirely within good planning, zoning and environmental norms.
Local authorities, apart from advertising much more widely planning applications, decisions and appeals, should be required to have the services of architects with the relevant specialist knowledge to improve design and appearance factors and to deal with planning applications at different levels. Frequently local authorities do not have the necessary architectural expertise on their staff, or available to them, to have an adequate conception of what is needed in particular areas in order to vet planning applications. Sometimes they will need specialist architectural advice particularly in the area of environmental impact assessment.
We have to differentiate between the requirements of historic parts of our cities and towns and those of other parts of the town and the countyside. Different factors can and do apply in these cases. We must have a heritage and cultural dimension to our planning decisions, which is not always the case in the current process. It is necessary to import recognition of cultural and historic factors into the planning process.
There is no provision for pro-active units to encourage improvement in the appearance of urban areas or schemes for city quays. Anyone going out to the villages of Dublin will see the disparate shop fronts: nice wooden signs here and plastic signs there a proliferation of which has destroyed the appearance of many old historic and beautiful villages. I have already cited Kilmainham, an historic village with buildings going back to Viking times and beyond. Not only has my own village of Inchicore been destroyed by heavy traffic — which we are trying to deal with — but it also has absolutely unco-ordinated shop front design. The local authorities should have the powers and a duty to go out to the local communities and say: here is what this place looks like at present and here are some designs of how we think it could be improved. We want to encourage you over, say, the next three years to improve your shop premises or perhaps industrial premises and sometimes households, so that the whole appearance of a particular place can be either restored or transformed. That is urgently needed.
I proposed at Dublin City Council that we have a development action plan for the Inchicore area to achieve this type of development but I find that the local authority have no role in the matter. It will take six to eight months to have the main points of an action plan drawn up. Thereafter there is no power to require shopkeepers or householders to meet the requirements, there are no funds available, and there is no belief among planning officials that it is any of their business. Yet if there is no co-ordinating body, nobody with a clear view of what should be done, individuals will go away and do their own thing and that is what has happened. Consequently many of the villages of Dublin have been destroyed, for example, Rathmines, Terenure, Coolock, Phibsboro, Drumcondra and Ringsend. Yet, there are individual developments which are magnificent.
I am not proposing that we have for all the villages of Dublin a grandiose plan such as that for the Temple Bar area. Were it not for the co-ordinating body that exists in Temple Bar the resurgence of Temple Bar would not be possible. We need that general approach, albeit on a smaller scale, to reinstate the villages of Dublin and we need a plan to divert traffic out of them. As chairman of the traffic committee of Dublin Corporation I am aware that many plans are in hand to try to reduce traffic flows but we also need a pro-active planning approach so that we can say to people: I know you have no plans to develop your shop or change it but we invite you to a meeting where you can examine our plans and if you agree with them we may aid and assist you in the design to meet with our requirements becaused we believe it is in the common interest.
A clear plan is needed for the improvement of streetscapes in our city centres and suburban villages. A vital part of urban environmental improvement is the removal of the tattiness in the built environment, the removal of the shutters that deface so many of our shops and industrial buildings. This will not happen unless there is a clear plan. I will be asking the Minister on Committee Stage to consider imposing this as a duty on local authorities and to provide incentives for property owners to participate in urban improvement. This is not a matter I am speaking about for the first time but one I have already included in the published Fine Gael plans for local government and for Dublin. It is a matter I shall be pursuing at each Stage of this Bill.
Last year I tabled a planning and development Bill which is on the Order Paper. I intend to put down the proposals contained in that Bill as amendments to the Bill now before the House. This is the type of Bill on which the Minister should indicate a willingness to accommodate amendments from the Opposition, apart from minor ones. He should show himself as being ready and willing to enter into discussions with the parties in this House and with groups outside the House who have an interest in the environment and in planning matters for example, An Taisce, with a view to arriving at a consensus on the planning process so that when the Bill is enacted we will have achieved a great improvement in the planning code.
I read with great interest the observations of An Taisce on this Bill. They are concerned that it may be unconstitutional and have prepared a detailed submission which they have forwarded to the Minister, myself and, I am sure, other Deputies. I propose to have discussions with An Taisce in regard to their detailed observations and to the amendments which they propose should be made to the Bill prior to Committee Stage. One of the questions they dealt with was the question of staff resources to which I referred earlier in my contribution.
In order to protect the board against cutbacks that may be made in the future it may well be necessary for us in amending the Bill to remove whatever authority the Minister for the Environment has to make appointments to the board, who, like so many other State bodies, have to get the go ahead to hire staff. Provision will have to be made to ensure that the board not only have adequate staff but that they are of sufficient quality and competent to deal briskly and effectively with the matters before them.
It is the fear of An Taisce and so many other bodies that the time limits imposed in the Bill will lead to bad planning and the granting of planning permission by default due to the lack of adequate resources to carry out adequate analysis of the proposal within the prescribed time. That cannot be the intention nor should it be the effect of this Bill. That is one of the central criticisms and we owe it to the country to carefully analyse the Bill and to try to improve it on Committee Stage. I will address this point at that stage.
I would like to raise another matter which was decided on in the High Court a few years ago. The decision made was that the time limits laid down in the Planning Acts apply from the time the person concerned receives notice of the local authority's decision, even though the local authority may have made their decision some time before. For instance, the local authorities normally send their planning decisions to the relevant parties by registered post; but, because of the possibility of delays in delivering post, strikes, and that the person concerned may be away for a few days, the High Court decided in the Feeney case that the time limit runs from the time the person actually receives notice.
I would have thought that we would have tried to clarify the position in this Bill. I would have thought also that the local authority had given due notice to the person concerned by sending the letter by registered post. Perhaps we could add on two days for posting, but it seems there is a need to clarify when the time limit commences and ends. This could be a great loophole in that a person could be away on holidays to avoid receiving notice from the local authorities. That is a defect. It should be adequate to send the notice by registered post, by courier or some other clearly defined method. The matter should be clarified in the legislation.
On the other hand, the time limit in respect of decisions made by An Bord Pleanála runs from the time they make their decisions, not from the time the local authorities are informed of the board's decision. Therefore the provisions of the law are inconsistent and this needs to be changed. The provisions in relation to giving the local authorities notice should be clarified so that the time limit runs from the time that they receive notice rather than from the time the board make their decision. If a secretary is out sick, if there is an oversight or a delay, the gap between the time the decision is made and is notified to the local authorities could be quite significant.
Given that we are trying to tighten up the times within which decisions have to be made, which I agree with, this is an area of the Bill which needs to be tightened. That is a valid criticism. If we expect the local authorities to react within a specified time we need to make sure that they receive the material from An Bord Pleanála and that the time ticks away from the time they receive it. They should receive notice as soon as feasible from the time the decision is made by the board. Again, this brings us back to the question of staff, which is not dealt with in the Bill.
It is a matter of some concern that people continually flout the planning laws. I had hoped that any new legislation dealing with planning and development would empower the local authorities and An Bord Pleanála to take into account the bona fides and the track record of planning applicants. For instance, there is a number of well known developers who keep setting up new companies to construct new developments and whose past developments are nothing short of a disgrace. People who are well known have left housing estates unfinished or in a very poor state so that many years will elapse before the local authority will be able to take those estates in charge. Furthermore, promises made to house purchasers in regard to open spaces and other matters are completely ignored once they move in and pay over the price of the house. There is a small group of people who will then move on to a new development under a new company name and deal with the same planning officials. These officials are aware of the track record of these people but they are not empowered to take that track record into account in coming to planning decisions. This is a major omission.
We need to ensure that our planning laws are effective and that a coach and four cannot be driven through our planning laws by unscrupulous developers. Some of these unscrupulous developers are very close to the planning corruption about which I spoke earlier. Many of their deeds and-or omissions have caused a great deal of heartache and annoyance for many householders. I hope that it will be possible for us on Committee Stage to improve the Bill by permitting the local authorities and An Bord Pleanála to take the suitability and track records of applicants for planning permission into account.
Debate adjourned.