Housing, Planning and Transportation: Statements.

Minister of State at the Department of the Environment and Local Government (Mr. Molloy)

I wish to share some of my time with Deputy Eoin Ryan.

The importance of the issues being addressed in today's debate cannot be overestimated. These issues are some of the most fundamental affecting our society. We are considering where our growing population will live and how people will get from their homes to work, to school and to other amenities which are central to our quality of life.

The Government recognises the challenges that lie ahead. Rapid economic growth has telescoped these challenges so that even though we have doubled housing output in four years we know that more than 200,000 additional houses will be required over the next five years. These must be planned for and the necessary infrastructure put in place to ensure that bottlenecks are avoided as far as possible in relation to key factors, particularly serviced land. It is necessary not only to build the houses but to do so in a planned and integrated fashion providing the necessary transport infrastructure and amenities in order to form viable new communities or integrate new housing successfully into existing communities. The decisions about where this housing is to be built and how best to manage this process are fundamental, both to our future economic success and to the kind of society we wish to develop.

The debate is very timely because the Government is bringing forward a range of developments covering housing, transport and strategic planning which are complementary and which require integrated thinking and implementation both within my Department and between my Department and the Department of Public Enterprise. The Government, in its recent statement, Action on the Housing Market following the second Bacon report, clearly placed the range of measures the Government is taking to secure balance in the housing market both within an immediate and a longer term perspective of strategic development.

In the past, strategic planning has tended to be treated almost as the academic end of development policy. This has contributed to a disproportionate amount of our population being concentrated in the Dublin area. The capital has tended to sprawl, making efficient and cost-effective public services – especially public transport – very difficult to achieve and community identities hard to preserve. At the same time, some towns outside the greater Dublin area have stagnated to a degree. We cannot afford to allow this unplanned and unconsidered approach to continue. Unless we now implement an effective development strategy, unbalanced development of the Dublin area will impose a heavy cost, both economically and socially. Moreover, the progress we are now making to increase the supply of land for housing in the Dublin area will be largely eroded in five or six years if demand for housing is not more evenly distributed in the medium and long term.

Therefore, strategic planning guidelines, launched by the Government last week, will form the basis of a development strategy for the overall Dublin and mid east area. We will ensure that the strategy in the regional guidelines is implemented effectively at sub-regional level by local authorities through their development plans. We have also indicated agreement in principle with the recommendation in the second Bacon report to draw up a national spatial development strategy which will help the formulation of policy in this regard.

I also welcome the recently published ESRI report on national investment priorities for the period 2000-2006 and particularly its recommendations regarding the priority to be afforded investment in public physical infrastructure. The recommendations regarding investment in social housing and roads, public transport and sanitary services are already being reflected in the Government's policies to date and will remain at the top of the priority list for investment in the forthcoming national development plan.

Housing is the key part of this strategic approach. The challenge facing this Government is to provide sufficient housing that is affordable, available to people at the tenure of their choice and make a positive contribution to the built environment and the building of communities. We have to deliver on all these needs at a time of unprecedented demand for housing. The Government has faced this challenge head on and has actively sought to increase housing supply where it is needed and in ways that ensure access to adequate housing for those unable to afford it from their own resources. No one is under any illusions about the difficulties of this task. The housing market inherited by the Government left us with much to do. However, we have risen to the challenge, taken the necessary actions and the indications are that those actions are now bearing fruit.

The Government's Action on House Prices, launched last April, was designed to curb serious overheating in the housing market and put in place measures to secure continued increase in housing supply. Further important initiatives have been undertaken since then, including a new section 23 type scheme for student accommodation, the new urban renewal scheme, a new local authority affordable housing scheme, the publication of draft planning guidelines on residential density and the strategic planning guidelines for Dublin and the mid east region.

We announced a further range of initiatives in the housing market on 9 March in response to a second report on the housing market by Dr. Peter Bacon. The Government's response to that report sets out how all the various measures and initiatives that have been taken in the past year will, taken together, play a major role in helping to secure house price stabilisation, an adequate supply of housing and balanced development in the future.

The overall policy framework within which all these housing measures are being pursued incorporates three key objectives: to secure sustained house price stabilisation as quickly as possible through accelerating housing supply; to target key issues, notably housing affordability and the role of the private rented sector; and to provide an effective strategy for development in the medium and long term.

The emphasis is unequivocally on measures to maximise and accelerate housing supply. This in turn necessitates ensuring that land is made available for housing as quickly as possible by removing infrastructural constraints. Furthermore, where developments are proposed they must not be delayed unnecessarily by bottlenecks in the planning system which have arisen from the extraordinary levels of growth throughout our economy.

With historically high levels of new housing output we have been using up our supply of serviced land at unprecedented rates. The Government, under the serviced land initiative, is providing £39 million to assist projects costing about £100 million to provide serviced land for housing and thereby to remove this crucial bottleneck. The balance of the cost is to come from local authority contributions funded mainly from development levies.

A total of 161 water and waste water projects has been approved under the initiative in two tranches which will provide serviced sites for more than 100,000 housing units, equivalent to two and a half years additional housing supply. I intend that the vast bulk of these additional sites will be delivered between this year and next. My Department continues to press for progress on the initiative and five schemes have already been completed. Ten schemes are at construction. A further 74 schemes are at advanced planning stage and will provide around 40,000 sites when completed. I expect the majority of these to be completed this year.

It is vitally important to ensure that there is adequate serviced land available for housing. It is also vitally important to maximise the potential of this land. This necessitates appropriate levels of residential density which will secure the efficient use of serviced development land and, at the same time, further the objectives of sustainability and help reduce the problem of commuter-generated traffic congestion, especially in the Dublin area. The recently published planning guidelines on residential density will make a major contribution to securing these objectives. Local authorities have been asked to implement them, even in their draft form, and I emphasise that they and An Bord Pleanála will be obliged under law to have regard to the guidelines when they are formally issued.

To cope with rapidly changing developments in the housing market it is essential for proper monitoring and policy evaluation of the housing situation to be carried out on a regular basis. I have asked the major financial and mortgage lending institutions to provide my Department with provisional house price data on a monthly basis. This will provide a more immediate indication of market trends and will complement the Department's wideranging compilation of associated data, much of which is published in the quarterly and annual housing statistics bulletins. The results of the monthly analysis of house price trends will be made available to all co-operating lending institutions. This type of information and analysis will assist my Department to counter any adverse developments in the housing market and to assess the effectiveness of the current measures being undertaken.

Preliminary indications received to date for the first two months of 1999 show reductions between January and February in house prices in Dublin, for both new and second hand houses. This latest information supports my Department's – and indeed Dr. Bacon's – analysis that the rate of house price increase has peaked and should moderate significantly this year. New house completions in January were up on last January's completions. With record planning permissions granted for houses in 1998 – up over one third on the previous year's total – and significant increases in home bond registrations in 1998 and in the first two months of 1999, all the indications point to another good year in terms of housing output. Housing output last year set another new record at over 42,000 units and the hope is that we can surpass that again this year.

The increased price of houses over recent years has, however, inescapably resulted in some households of modest income, who might previously have bought their own house, now believing they are priced out of the housing market. However, it is important that aspiring first-time buyers are not discouraged by the average house prices. Average house prices, whether new or second hand, include many houses sold to people on significantly above average incomes.

The first-time purchasers market is different. There continues to be large numbers of houses available at less than the average house price and first-time buyers are finding them. The average price paid by a first-time buyer is in the order of £85,000 to £90,000. This compares with an average new house price of £106,500 and an average second-hand house price of £116,400 for the December 1998 quarter, according to my Department's published data.

Measures introduced under last year's action on house prices are helping to assist affordability for lower income house buyers, particularly through withdrawal of investor incentives, reduced stamp duty which has improved liquidity in the second-hand market and improvements in the local authority shared ownership scheme. Further innovative approaches to the issue of housing affordability are now being pursued, including the promotion of a better mix of affordable type units in new developments and the recently launched local authority affordable housing scheme.

Under the terms of the new affordable housing scheme, local authorities will provide additional new houses on land available to them in or near centres where house prices have created an affordability gap for lower income house purchasers. The houses will be offered for sale to eligible purchasers at cost price and, accordingly, at a significant discount from the market value of comparable houses in the area. Purchasers will be offered mortgage finance at favourable interest rates and a subsidy will reduce further mortgage repayments for households with incomes of up to £16,000. While the primary emphasis of the scheme will be on urban centres where house price increases have been most marked, I am conscious that there are other areas where particular factors such as demand for holiday homes have created an artificial market and where local authorities might usefully intervene to provide affordable housing under the new scheme.

This scheme will bring an additional dimension to Government efforts to address the problems that have developed in the housing market. An essential element of the scheme is that it is directly linked to the delivery of additional new houses by local authorities and will, therefore, not adversely affect house prices. A number of local authorities are already developing proposals which will fit into the new scheme.

I am not selling this scheme as the solution to all the problems faced by aspiring first time buy ers. It is, however, an important new initiative to help bridge the affordability gap which rapid house price increases over the past few years have created for many aspiring purchasers. Any measures that would fuel demand through, for example, increased availability of mortgage finance or increased new house grants without a corresponding increase in supply would undo the progress that has been made and inevitably cause renewed price escalation.

The development of suitable sites, including where necessary the acquisition of land and the planning and construction of houses, will, of necessity, require some time to arrange. Nevertheless, I hope some 400 houses may be provided under the scheme this year and between 1,000 and 2,000 houses in subsequent years.

The Government is conscious of the increased level of social housing needs. A combination of house price rises, increases in the numbers of Irish people returning from abroad and changing demographic trends has and will continue to have an impact on the numbers requiring assistance from the State in meeting their housing needs.

The Government has responded by increasing Exchequer expenditure on housing from £220 million in the 1997 Estimates, agreed before this Government took office, to £320 million in the 1999 Estimates. This is an increase of 45 per cent in expenditure in two years. The local authority housing programme has been increased to its highest level in years. Investment in 1999 will be four times greater than in 1993. Indeed, I secured increases of 18 per cent for the programme in each of the past two years. This high level of funding will enable local authorities to meet commitments on their ongoing programmes and to fund the enhanced programme of 4,500 new starts in 1999. The substantially increased capital provision for this year is testament to the Government's commitment to local authority housing as the mainstay of the overall response to social housing needs. I am currently considering how we can enable the local authority housing programme to be even more responsive to identified needs in the coming years.

I am also consulting with voluntary housing bodies to ascertain how significantly increased output from the sector can be achieved over the next few years. I believe that the voluntary housing sector has the capacity with proper support to provide some 4,000 to 5,000 units of accommodation per year and my efforts will be directed towards putting the necessary supports and financial assistance in place to deliver this target.

As Minister with responsibility for housing, I significantly increased the levels of grant assistance available under the voluntary housing capital assistance scheme on two occasions. Since the inception of the scheme these increases of up to 67 per cent represented the most significant increases ever made in the level of assistance. I also greatly increased the levels of grant available under the disabled person's grant and essential repairs grant schemes, with the effective maximum disabled person's grant up from £8,000 to £12,000 and the effective essential repairs grant up from £1,800 to £4,500. The essential repairs grant scheme has also been extended to urban areas, a very significant change.

I have significantly increased funding for the Task Force on Special Housing Aid for the Elderly to bring its funding in 1999 to £6 million, the highest level ever. I and my Department continually press local authorities to respond better to housing needs in their own areas by developing the full potential of the range of social housing and voluntary housing measures now available to them.

A cross-Department team has been established, which is chaired and serviced by my Department, to prepare an integrated response to the many problems which affect homeless people, including matters relating to accommodation, health, education and employment. We have also provided £1 million for the very first ‘foyer' for homeless persons. ‘Foyers' are specifically designed and managed to provide both accommodation and training opportunities for young homeless persons. The Housing (Traveller Accommodation) Act, which I brought through the House last year, will ensure that housing authorities provide a planned, integrated and comprehensive response to the accommodation needs of travellers.

Area based initiatives where the redevelopment of housing is the focus for the social and economic regeneration of the area as a whole are under way in Ballymun, in a number of Dublin inner-city flat complexes, in Rahoon and Ballinasloe in Galway and in a number of estates in Cork. Some £21 million is being provided by Government this year to assist the Ballymun regeneration programme and £6.5 million to assist the inner city flat complexes redevelopment in Dublin. The redevelopment works in Rahoon have a total cost of £15 million and the redevelopment at St. Grellan's Terrace in Ballinasloe will cost in excess of £2 million. These are just some examples of a wide range of initiatives to restore the physical fabric of established areas and to support local communities which are a vital aspect of the housing programme and significant resources have been devoted to them.

It is clear that a range of effective actions are being taken by the Government across the housing spectrum. I acknowledge problems exist. However, we have systematically addressed these problems and the results are beginning to become apparent. Some of the measures will, by their nature, take longer to bear fruit than others. I will continue to evaluate on an ongoing basis the development of further measures that may be appropriate. The Government's housing strategy is multi-faceted, combining a number of programmes of action together to form an integrated response. It is comprehensive, adequately funded and subject to proper political direction by the Government. Housing is high on the priority list of this Government and will remain that way. There should be no doubt that increased investment in housing infrastructure to secure and release land for housing and public transport will be key elements in the forthcoming National Development Plan.

Mr. E. Ryan

I welcome the opportunity to speak on these important issues and thank the Minister of State for sharing time with me. Fundamental decisions are being made and need to be made about the future development of Dublin city and its suburbs. Many problems, which will be mentioned during the debate, have been created by our huge economic success. Nobody could have foreseen that the economy would grow so quickly. As a result, many people have returned to Ireland, taken up jobs and bought cars, houses, etc. This has led to a huge infrastructural problem in the Dublin region.

The Government is doing a good job given that it has had to cope with a sudden change in the economy. I appreciate that I am a Government backbencher, but any Government would have had similar problems.

Mr. Broughan

The Government will find out in the local elections.

Mr. E. Ryan

The only way to address many of these problems, including proper planning, is to develop other parts of the country. There must be economic development in the west and Border regions; the pressure on Dublin must be relieved. Transport and housing problems have been created because everybody is moving to Dublin.

If we do not want an unattractive urban sprawl from Dundalk to Arklow and across the midlands to Westmeath in 20 years' time, serious decisions must be taken to develop other regions. The Government is undertaking vital strategic planning. In response to the housing problem, it published the Bacon report and the Bacon No. 2 report. The first report had a positive effect on the price of houses and other issues, although many people felt it did not affect the market. A weakness of the report, which I highlighted at the time, was in the private rented sector, on which it had a negative effect. I am glad initiatives were taken in this area in the second report.

The Government's response to the second report was that the overall policy framework incorporated three key objectives – to secure sustained house price stabilisation as quickly as possible through accelerated housing supply; to target key issues, notably housing, affordability and the role of the private rented sector; and to provide an effective strategy in the medium and long-term. Further initiatives being taken to achieve this include arrangements to facilitate the early release of up to 16,000 housing sites in the Dublin north fringe through the provision of temporary sewerage facilities using state of the art technology and the potential of public-private partnerships to develop the north fringe interceptor sewer at a cost of £16 million is being exam ined. Steps are being taken to ensure the serviced land initiative delivers maximum results on schedule.

Additional investment will be provided to remove significant infrastructural constraints to housing developments, while increased densities are essential to maximise supply. Planning guidelines for local authorities were recently published and they were asked to implement them in draft form. Local authorities will be obliged under law to have regard to these guidelines when they are formally issued. A better mixed use of houses in new developments will be promoted, including more affordable house types with increased density and high quality design.

The forthcoming reform of planning legislation is under consideration to see how it can be used to reinforce the powers of local authorities to achieve these objectives. Measures to increase access to mortgage funding without increasing supply of housing will not be pursued at this stage as they would only fuel demand and house prices. Other measures to be taken include increased staffing to enable An Bord Pleanála reduce backlogs and delays in determining appeals, examination of the potential for housing of lands in State ownership that are surplus to requirement and to speed up the sale of land for development, and the requirement that planning permission must have been granted to qualify for the lower 20 per cent capital gains tax on the sale of land for residential development has been withdrawn.

Over the years we have tended to examine only private and local authority housing. I am delighted the Minister of State has taken an interest in the voluntary housing sector because it has huge potential. In Ringsend, my constituency colleague, Deputy Quinn, and I have worked with the local voluntary housing organisation, which has built more than 50 affordable houses for married couples in the area, the most expensive of which cost £50,000. It has been a huge success and the Department of the Environment and Local Government is considering how it can help the organisation in future. The voluntary sector is used to great effect in other countries and it could be used to greater effect here but, unfortunately, local authorities, for whatever reason, seem reluctant to help this sector. That will change and the Minister of State said he was putting pressure on them to examine every area to maximise the number of houses.

Acting Chairman (Mr. McGrath)

Deputy Ryan, without interruption, please.

Mr. E. Ryan

Yes, it was.

Mr. Broughan

Never, the Labour Party is not before a tribunal.

The Labour Party was in the coalition which appointed the former Minister, Ray Burke.

I wish to share my time with Deputy Olivia Mitchell.

Acting Chairman

Is that agreed? Agreed.

Mr. Hayes

It would have been wrong for the Dáil to go into recess without the opportunity to debate the housing crisis. As the party which requested the debate to review current Government policy, Fine Gael believes there is a direct link between housing policy and the provision of better public transport. The twin issues of housing and public transport represent the new bottlenecks in the economy and cannot be dealt with separately.

The recent success of the economy could unravel unless the supply of housing is increased to meet demand. The recent ESRI report clearly highlighted the problem when it predicted that Ireland would experience substantial net inward migration over the coming 12 years. It is likely that the population will increase to over 4 million persons by 2012. It has been estimated that in the next ten years housing output will have to be increased by over 40 per cent to deal with the growing demand for housing. Added to the phenomenon of substantial inward migration is the number of persons reaching the age of household formation. The demand for additional housing units will continue to grow over the next ten years.

We all recognise the difficult challenges ahead in providing for that additional population growth. It could be argued that the political problems of a successful economy are as daunting as those that can emerge with an economy in recession. What most people find impossible to understand is the length of time it has taken the Government to wake up to the scale of the housing crisis. In just over three months, the Government will have been in office two years and there is still no sense of an overall plan or national strategy to tackle the housing crisis.

Where the Government has attempted to intervene, e.g. the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1988, the implications for the private rented sector have been disastrous. There is no hiding the fact that since coming to office, Fianna Fáil and the Progressive Democrats have relied on consultants' reports in an attempt to develop a national housing policy.

People who are priced out of the housing market are demanding action. Fine Gael believes it is a scandal that modern Ireland cannot provide affordable and decent accommodation for its people. A country which prides itself on high levels of home ownership has become one of the most expensive places in Europe to buy or rent a home. Who would have thought it possible that the joint incomes of a garda and a nurse would be unable to meet the cost of purchasing a starter home? Those in the public sector are justifiably enraged as they face an insecure future in the private rented sector. One of the most basic aspirations of society, the aspiration to purchase a home, is virtually unattainable.

The workers were told to tighten their belts so that the economy could grow and prosper. It is a sickening irony that the people who created the Celtic tiger can no longer afford to purchase homes in it. Ordinary working people kept their part of the bargain, it is time the Government did the same.

The Government is particularly defensive about its policies in relation to the housing crisis. Regularly, the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, and others seek to blame the previous Government for failing to take initiatives in this area. Under the stewardship of this Government, the problems in the housing market have increased substantially. It is no surprise that during the past two years house prices have increased nationally by well over 35 per cent. Despite last year's action, rents continue to soar. There is a massive increase in the number of persons requiring social housing. It is high time the Government took responsibility for this area of policy and stopped blaming its predecessors for the crisis.

Many of the initiatives announced in the past month or so should have been implemented at a much earlier stage. We now receive from the Department of the Environment and Local Government a weekly housing initiative at a time when the statutory national housing assessment is taking place. The Government is fully aware of the extent of the housing crisis given the massive increase, estimated at 60 per cent, in the number of persons who require local authority housing. The scale of the housing emergency will be announced in the coming weeks by the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Government will attempt to deflect criticism by pointing to the recent policy initiatives.

In the past month a new affordable housing scheme has been announced, density guidelines and the second Bacon report have been published and we have had the recent strategic guidelines for the Dublin region. These long overdue announcements will make some difference but will not dramatically affect the position of the first time buyer.

The Government's response to date is akin to a motorist coming on the scene of an accident and deciding to call 999 six months after the event. During the first week of March, the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, announced the details of a new affordable housing scheme. The scheme is built around the concept that local authorities are to provide additional new homes for low income purchasers on land provided by the relevant authority. As highlighted in a recent Dublin Corporation report there is a complete absence of land in the Dublin region for the provision of social housing. To put it bluntly, the local authority land bank is a thing of the past. While the scheme will affect a small group of people, it is an attempt to ringfence the provision of affordable housing for people who would otherwise remain in the private rented sector.

Notwithstanding the difficulties concerning the availability of the land bank we have now reached the stage when additional responsibility should be placed on developers to provide a certain percentage of all new homes at fixed rates for middle to low income people. The recent density guidelines will provide a great opportunity for landowners and developers to make double profits literally overnight. Increasing housing units will provide an opportunity for the building industry to make a killing on the sale of new homes.

The time has long since passed when the Government should compel developers to provide affordable housing at a level of at least 15 to 20 per cent in all new housing schemes. The new density proposals will allow vastly increased housing units to come on to the market in specific areas. The designation of a percentage of all new development for affordable housing has considerable advantages over the Minister's tame scheme involving local authorities. Builders construct housing units at a faster and more efficient rate than local authorities. Through establishing a fixed percentage for affordable housing pressure would be taken away from the diminishing local authority land bank. If it was correct to establish a fixed percentage for affordable housing in the docklands area it must be equally correct to establish such a principle at a time when the new density proposals are put in place.

There is a political imperative on the building industry to play its part in establishing affordable housing options. The proposal to establish a fixed percentage for affordable housing has been put to great effect in Britain since the passage of the Town and Country Act, 1990. In the British example, I understand that approximately 20 per cent of all new developments in certain areas are designated for affordable housing.

I wish to comment on a recent statement by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey. It has been reported that the Minister in the context of preparing new planning legislation will consider an amendment to the planning laws to limit the zoning of land for residential or industrial use to the five year lifespan of a local authority development plan. The purpose of the proposal is presumably to ensure that land which is rezoned for housing purposes comes on the market as soon as possible.

There are countless examples in the Dublin area of large tracts of land zoned for housing, with services on site, to which no planning permission is attached. There are examples of developers sitting on land to ensure that they obtain a higher price for their developments in 12 or 24 months. This land speculation has been helped to a considerable degree by the Government's decision to slash capital gains tax. I could understand an argument to reduce CGT for a 12 month period to help boost the supply of land in specific areas. However, the reduction from 40 per cent to 20 per cent for a three year period has helped developers to sit on land for much longer than is necessary.

The Government may point to an increasing yield from the reduction in CGT. However, there is evidence in the Dublin area in particular that the supply of building land for housing has not come on stream in sufficient quantities. In this context, I welcome the Minister's comments about limiting the zoning of land for the term of a development plan. In addition, specific penalties should be in place at the end of that development plan where land has not been developed or planning permission has not been sought.

The need to increase densities to increase housing supply has been identified. The Minister should establish a separate unit in his Department to monitor and ensure enforcement of these new guidelines. Individual decisions of planning departments in areas where there is a substantial demand must be scrutinised on a more systematic basis from the viewpoint of the Department of the Environment and Local Government or regional authorities. There are still too many examples of low density developments in areas where there is a demand for housing units. Individual planning departments in the local government system need to know that their actions are being monitored because their decisions have such a dramatic effect on the ability of the State to increase overall housing output.

While increasing housing densities in certain areas should help to increase supply, the existence of a more efficient and effective planning system would also greatly help in reducing the current log jams in the housing market. I will deal later with the strategic planning guidelines for the Dublin area which were announced last week.

Regarding planning delays, in the last five years the number of appeals presented to An Bord Pleanála has almost doubled. In 1994, some 2,500 appeals were lodged and this figure increased to 4,500 in 1998. Despite the legislation introduced by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, last year, a considerable backlog of applications is currently under consideration by An Bord Pleanála. I understand the increasing volume of planning appeals to An Bord Pleanála has led to a situation where only 60 per cent of all planning appeals are processed within the four month period, a target set out in the 1992 legislation. The position has changed dramatically since 1995 when more than 95 per cent of appeals were processed within the four month timeframe. Similar difficulties are being experienced at local authority planning department level. The mushrooming in applications to these departments has led to increasing delays in sanctioning various applications.

I will deal with the Government's response to the second Bacon report, which was issued on 9 March. Despite the discussion last year about the potential for advancing the public/private partnership principle for major infrastructural developments, very little work has been done on the issue and it remains largely aspirational. I understand a difficulty has emerged in the Department of the Environment and Local Government concerning deadlines for the commencement and completion of the serviced land initiative scheme. This is another example of local authorities fall ing down in their responsibilities. To ensure the success of the scheme, it is vital that the Department of the Environment and Local Government is seen to take action against authorities which are not making an effort to respond to the initiative.

It is also worth questioning how realistic the figure of 16,000 housing units is in relation to the north Dublin fringe. This figure is largely aspirational. I ask the Department of the Environment and Local Government to state who will pay for the temporary sewerage facilities to service the additional development of 16,000 new homes in the Fingal and Dublin Corporation areas. It is arguable whether any private body will invest in a temporary facility which will become redundant following the establishment of the north Dublin interceptor in 2004. I also ask the Department to outline the timeframe for the establishment of the 16,000 homes. I assumed it would be impossible to develop these lands by going through the usual planning and consultation process in less than four years. How serious is the Government about establishing 16,000 new homes in this area of north Dublin?

The Fine Gael Party has consistently held the view that the recommendations of the Buchanan report, which is now 30 years old, have the potential to provide a solution to the problem of population growth. I am interested to know when a national spatial development strategy group will be established by the Government in line with Dr. Bacon's recommendations. I note the Minister's comments on this matter.

It is unfortunate that the latest announcement offers no help to the position of tenants in the private rented sector. The Government has dodged the recommendation to increase tax allowances for tenants. Against a background of rocketing rents and insecurity of tenancy, the failure to help this hard pressed group in the housing market is most unfair. It is worth pointing out that the cost of Dr. Bacon's proposal to increase the maximum tax relief for tenants from £500 to £1,000 per annum would be approximately £17.5 million in a full year. If a large group of people are to be encouraged to view the private rented sector as a longer term housing option, it follows that this sector must hold incentives for tenants and landlords. The promotion of long-term leases with specific tax incentives for landlords would greatly help to advance the principle of the private rented sector as a long-term housing option for many people.

I welcome in principle the decision by the Government to establish a commission to examine the issues relating to security of tenure in the private rented sector. I would have preferred the proposed commission to have a broader remit. It is worth nothing that this decision has been taken in principle and I ask the Government to establish the membership of such a commission and its terms of reference as a matter of priority. There are lessons to be learned from the recent report to the Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform which investigated the circumstances surrounding the Mespil Road flats incident some years ago. There is an urgent need to address the issue of security of tenure and to improve standards in this growing sector of the housing market.

It should not have taken two years for the Minister of State with responsibility for housing to move on the housing commission. It should not have taken a consultant's report before the Minister of State agreed in principle to establish such a commission. This is yet another example of the Minister of State's foot dragging on the issue.

It is not an exaggeration to state that the new strategic guidelines issued last year represent the most radical U-turn in development policy for the greater Dublin area in the past 30 years. If the strategic plan and guidelines are to work, Exchequer investment of approximately £3 billion is required. Such an investment requires a completely separate stream of funding from the national development plan which is being considered in the context of the next round of Structural Funds. Plans can only be put into effect where hard cash is available to back up the projects which need to be put in place in the Dublin area.

Will the Minister of State comment on how the new strategic guidelines can be enforced when six of the seven county development plans in the greater Dublin area are already in place? Will the Minister of State direct local authorities to materially contravene their plans? Can any of the guidelines be put into operation before the new planning legislation is enacted by the Houses of the Oireachtas? I understand the legislation is promised for 1999 and it will take some time for the Bill to go through both Houses given its comprehensive nature.

Unfortunately, the Government has not addressed the housing crisis. It stands indicted for its inaction in all areas of the housing market, particularly in relation to the huge increase in the number of applications for social housing. That is the largest scandal in this area.

Ms O. Mitchell

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate, particularly in the context of the recent publication of the strategic planning guidelines which I believe will be the framework for the most rapid change we have ever seen or will see in the greater Dublin area.

These population and employment changes will happen whether or not we are ready for them. The Dublin local authorities which initiated this process, although the Government has since hijacked it, are to be congratulated. They recognised the need for a framework to accommodate all future changes.

Both Bacon reports and the guidelines have given us some inkling of the scale of the challenge which lies ahead in terms of the provision of housing. We now know that meeting the housing needs of the greater Dublin area will require the provision of a 50 per cent increase in housing by 2011. By any standards this is a phenomenal challenge, comparable only to that faced in European cities following the war.

Even if we meet the challenge, it does not mean we will solve the housing crisis, which is fundamentally a question of affordability. As my colleague Deputy Hayes said, they are related but distinct problems.

Housing is only one aspect of people's needs, albeit an important one. A settlement strategy must provide for all the needs of the community. If we are to build sustainable and stable communities which afford people a reasonable quality of life, we must also facilitate the provision of their economic, social, recreational, cultural, educational, health and transport needs. When we adopt and implement a settlement strategy we are making long-term decisions about the quality of life for a generation of people. It cannot simply be a question of providing water, drainage and acres of housing then walking away from all the other needs which make the difference between housing people and giving them the opportunity for civilised living.

The Minister, in launching the strategic planning guidelines, said he would formally request that the local authorities abide by them. As far as the local authorities in Dublin are concerned, he need have no fear. They recognised the emerging crisis long before any Government and before it became a trendy media hyped issue. They embraced agenda 21 and adopted the principles of sustainable development when there was precious little support for these concepts from the Government, media or the public. They will not be found wanting.

Local authorities can only do so much. Through their development plans they can facilitate and encourage high density development, they can provide mixed use zoning to reduce the overall demand for travel and they can direct development to consolidate the metropolitan area and the designated growth centres in the hinterland but they cannot provide a single bus, child care place, health centre or school. The Government cannot simply issue directives to the local authorities and then wash its hands of the problem.

The success of this strategy lies with the Government and its willingness to commit resources to the greater Dublin area. Will the same directive be issued to CIE to provide the transport services required by this vastly increased population? I ask that question with a degree of scepticism because I lived in a new suburb 30 years ago and 30 years on thousands of my neighbours and I are still waiting for a bus service.

The report clearly stated that the success of the strategy hinges on the mass provision of transport. It does not matter if it is provided by the public or private sector. Much as we decry traffic congestion today, in ten years time we will look back on this as a golden age such will be the nightmarish conditions which will pertain unless we take the traffic issue by the scruff of the neck and deal with it with the required urgency.

Much lip service has been paid to solving the problem of traffic in Dublin. There has been announcement after announcement by the Government but we are not winning the battle; we are not even holding our own. Every day things get worse – businesses lose money, competitiveness diminishes, tempers are frayed, pollution increases and still car ownership and usage is increasing. That is the reality of life for urban dwellers in Dublin and its hinterland. It will get worse. We know that by 2011 there will be an additional 250,000 people trying to get to work every morning. That is an average of 20,000 extra people each year. The Government response in terms of peak hour rail provision, which will come on stream in the next few years, will cater for 11,000 people. If we are to have any hope of averting disaster, the Government must make a massive public investment in commuter services and bring in the private sector at every level to provide the competition, capacity, funding and sense of urgency needed to get the job done.

Much has been made of the 150 extra buses. They will provide one bus per route. Six years was spent designing Luas and not one shovel has been put in the ground. This rate of progress is disastrous. We know what is needed because population forecasts are reasonably accurate.

My fear is that, with regionalisation and the drop in EU funding for the eastern region, the Government will find it all too easy to turn its back on the greater Dublin area. We will see the increased population and housing but precious little else of what is needed to make life tolerable for citizens in urban areas. Any Government which considers doing that would be well advised to remember that it is turning its back on 1.6 million people, the projected population for 2011, who will produce 50 per cent of national output. If those people cannot have civilised living conditions, cannot get to work, do business and move goods, then Dublin, which is already scarcely viable, will fail as an economic unit and as a place in which to live. If we jeopardise the population of Dublin and their 50 per cent of output, we jeopardise the entire State. The economic miracle and all its potential will tumble down around us.

The Government cannot leave the implementation of these guidelines to the local authorities. It must introduce other measures. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government is responsible for the development of the strategy and he must ensure measures are developed to deal with traffic congestion. He could immediately introduce a measure enabling local authorities to levy a public transport contribution when granting planning permission. At the moment local authorities are in receipt of an enormous number of planning applications for housing and commercial and industrial developments. The authorities have no legal standing to request a levy and opportunities to secure funding for public transport are being lost. Tra ditionally the authorities have the ability to provide contributions for water, drainage and roads services. As many of the applications are for infill development, sometimes road contributions are not appropriate. A public transport contribution would be far more appropriate. This may be considered in the context of the new planning legislation, but it is urgently required. We cannot afford to wait another six months for this. Opportunities are being lost every day as planning permissions are being granted. I would be grateful if the Minister would consider introducing that legislation as a matter of urgency.

The heated exchange that took place between Deputy Eoin Ryan and my colleagues highlighted why we have a housing crisis in Dublin, why the land prices are so high and house prices are beyond the reach of the average individual. The reason was the complete absence of rational debate. If it had taken place, as it did in the past, it would have allowed for the provision of a reasonable amount of zoned land. In the battle that took place between those who wanted to zone everything and those who wanted to zone nothing all reason went out of the argument. On the one hand there were those who thought the other side was dishonest and that side thought its opponents were irresponsible. The outcome was a climate in which every decision was suspect and open to accusation and because there was so much at risk and land prices were escalating at such a rate the situation was open to abuse. I hope that one of the benefits of these new guidelines is that this will never occur again in Dublin or elsewhere in Ireland.

Mr. Broughan

I wish to share my time with Deputies Séan Ryan and McManus.

Acting Chairman

That is agreed.

Mr. Broughan

As our economy grows, every year the huge infrastructural deficit facing our country becomes more apparent. Nowhere is this more apparent than in housing and transport. The infrastructural deficits in both those area are linked. The recent national investment priorities report by ESRI for 2000-6 reveals that a figure of more than £50 billion would be needed in these and other areas in the coming five year period. The difficulties were made much greater by the recent performance of the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy, in Brussels. They came back with £3 billion net for the six year period, but each year over the next six years our contribution to Europe, which according to the Department of Finance now stands at £800 million at year, will far surpass the money that will flow in Structural and Cohesion Funds. That leaves us in a very invidious position.

The Minister of State trumpeted the fact that he has reached the target of 4,500 new local authority houses, but that only barely meets 10 per cent of the massive demand for houses. This is brought to the attention of Members on a weekly basis at their advice clinics. The length of the housing waiting list in Dublin and in other urban and rural areas throughout the country is appalling.

During this debate we heard about the causes of the current housing crisis. They include the growth of households, Irish people returning from abroad and net immigration. Another contributory factor is the downright greed of developers, builders and the auctioneering profession. I noticed that when a company, which announced recently it is to be floated on the Stock Exchange, arrived on the north side housing prices jumped in value by approximately 30 per cent. Some of those professions, to use the words of our great poet, William Butler Yeats, have "sucked the marrow from the bone". They extracted every last penny from young couples and households. There is a question mark over the auctioneering profession in terms of the qualification required, its administration and supervision. Perhaps the Minister of State should address this area during his term of office.

As my colleagues on my left said, the Minister of State has failed abysmally to tackle this crisis during the past two years. He hid behind his Fianna Fáil adviser, Peter Bacon, and pushed his ideas to the forefront to hide the fact that he had no ideas on how to tackle this crisis. He was asked by all the voluntary agencies to set up a commission on housing to examine the problems in depth and to come up with a sustainable plan for the next 10 or 15 years, but he refused to do that. The Labour Party set up a national commission on housing overseen by Deputy Gilmore. He cannot be here today and I am taking his place. We visited most of the major cities and towns, gathered evidence and noted the ideas put forward by all the voluntary housing groups and by people on housing and transfer lists. We hope to put those ideas before the people at the forthcoming local elections and the next general election and to bring them to Government, if we are elected to office.

I welcome a number of the initiatives taken in relation to the first and second Bacon reports. There were questions marks over housing densities. Some of our journalistic colleagues in the Sunday Independent pointed out the rural splendour in which people like Peter Bacon and others live, while young people have been asked to live in a density of 20 houses to the acre. In the past Ballymun was the main area of high density housing. There is also high density housing in Darndale and Belcamp in my constituency. The provision of such high density local authority housing is an abysmal failure. The issue of density in relation to prices is also questionable. In parts of my constituency, along the Howth peninsula, there are high density town houses, but prices there have gone through the roof. Houses are selling for £200,000 plus. We need a much more vigorous response on this matter.

I welcome what the Minister of State said about the voluntary sector and the housing mix. I salute the county manager of Fingal, Mr. Willie Soffe, who indicated he would like at least a 20 per cent social housing mix in major residential developments on the northern fringe of the city and in south Fingal.

A deep concern of the Labour Party is the escalation of rents and the way that has impinged on young people and on those on the housing waiting list. In my constituency tenants have to pay between £500 to £800 per month in rent for a modest three bedroomed house. A examination of the introduction of mandatory price controls in the rental sector must be undertaken. Tenants are struggling to pay their rents.

The public sector is also involved in this area through the payment of rent supplements. The rent supplement budget has escalated. In the previous Government my colleague, Deputy De Rossa, attempted to bring together the rent supplement area and local authority housing provision, but since he left office this has not moved forward.

The housing shortage to some extent was artificially created by the political boundaries. Why is there not a single housing list for the four counties? That would benefit the Government because some people are on two housing lists.

Deputy Eoin Ryan referred to the recent rezoning of Pelletstown. The city council, made up mainly of Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Parties, rezoned the land as agricultural land, Z10. Following consultation it was rezoned, through the manager's intervention, as Z16, a master housing plan. That infuriated the Labour Party at a recent council meeting in the Mansion House. Councillors had a choice to vote for the land to be zoned as Z10 or Z16, but we decided to abandon the charade and walk out.

I wish to bring to the attention of the Minister of the State an initiative of my constituents in the Baldoyle area. It is proposed to create two new urban parishes of possibly 2,500 to 3,000 houses. Through their consultants, whom they paid approximately £4,000 or £5,000, Baldoyle Community Association presented this excellent plan. They took it upon themselves to put forward this plan during the debate on the final stage of the Fingal Development Plan. They would like a significant portion of the racecourse, which are wetlands, a natural habitat and amenity lands, retained for the community of Baldoyle in conjunction with appropriate residential development and an appropriate mix of development.

I welcome the strategic planning guidelines. At long last we are beginning to examine the real issues. However, I wish to comment on the provisions relating to water and sewerage schemes. The rainbow Government came up with almost £42 million, a small sum, but at least something towards a strategic water plan for Dublin. The managers of the four Dublin councils have stated that we need to spend a minimum of £200 million to £300 million to secure Dublin's water supply. Last weekend basic maintenance was carried out at the Leixlip works. Because Dublin has no strategic standby water supply, we had to turn off the supply for the entire north of the county for two days. This is incredible nonsense. Cities such as Paris have water on standby in case of emergencies such as a terrorist attack. However, Dublin has no such reserves. Its water supply is on a knife edge and the Minister is doing nothing about it. There is no point in setting out guidelines unless the Government is prepared to put its money where its mouth is.

Deputy Ryan spoke about transport and the need to look at the greater Dublin region. However, Dublin representatives have always recognised the lack of investment as the fundamental problem. Deputy Olivia Mitchell was correct on this issue.

We went into the local elections in 1991 expecting to see Luas built in four or five years. Nine years later we are nowhere near that point. The same applies to the Dublin port tunnel, the eastern by-pass and moneys for Dublin Bus. The new buses became available only recently. The Government is hypocritical to speak about serious planning and the £430 million for CIE's safety programme. Deputy O'Rourke is not prepared to provide one penny towards that programme and is forcing CIE to sell off property. We do not know from where the £400 million for Luas will come.

The Government is not offering any answers to these questions. It is doing very badly on housing and transport and will get an unpleasant answer from the electorate in Dublin in ten weeks. I welcome its measures on planning guidelines.

Mr. S. Ryan

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this debate. Every public representative is aware of the housing crisis. Even the Minister acknowledges that a housing crisis has gripped the country in recent years. The word crisis is appropriate as every sector of the housing market is in chaos.

Homelessness is increasing at a frightening rate in every town and city. We are all aware of instances where extended families are living in the one house, leading to gross overcrowding. People are sleeping in sitting rooms as they cannot get local authority houses.

People are also living in mobile homes where one can see condensation running down walls or dripping from ceilings on to beds where couples sleep with two or three children. At the same time we talk about equality and health care. The conditions I have described are consequences of the housing shortage.

Tenants in the private rented sector are labouring under spiralling rents, lack of regulation and fear of eviction. Those on local authority housing lists are gripped by a sense of hopelessness that their housing needs will ever be catered for and the waiting lists grow and grow. About 45,000 people are on housing lists. Young couples see their dreams of owning a home vanish as prices rocket out of control. This is taking place in a week when newspapers trumpeted the news of Ireland's first millionaires' row in my constituency. Is it any wonder that ordinary people ask what sort of Government we have? There is a two tier system and we are looking after those who have political clout. Is it any wonder that people look in awe at developments at the tribunals?

I take issue with Deputies Mitchell and Ryan when they suggest that the Labour Party is somehow responsible for the scandal of rezoning. The Labour Party is in favour of proper planning and development. This has always been our position.

Deputy Mitchell correctly referred to the lack of public transport. How can we provide adequate public transport and road networks when we have the ad hoc rezoning of lands where it will take ten or 15 years before there is proper infrastructure or transport? In many cases the only reason land in the middle of nowhere was rezoned was because of the undue influence of builders. That is why we have a tribunal of inquiry. We should not forget this when people point the finger at the Labour Party.

In the 1980s elected members of Dublin County Council could not get into the chamber because it was full of developers and their agents trying to secure recommendations for rezoning land. These recommendations had been drawn up by those developers and builders. Some of the recommendations were legitimate and presented no difficulty. However, others took no cognisance of other development needs and the requirement for infrastructure.

The Department's figures show that house prices rose by between 24 per cent and 29 per cent in 1998. This at a time when ordinary people are trying to buy a home. For months the Minister would not accept that there was a crisis. There has been a flurry of apparent Government activity on housing. Why? Does it have something to do with the local and European elections in June?

A new affordable housing scheme was announced on 2 March. I contacted local authorities to see what information they had on this new scheme. All we got was a press release from the Department and a three page document. This was to solve the problem. According to the Minister of State, under the terms of the new affordable houses scheme, local authorities would provide additional new houses on land available to them in or near centres where house prices have created an affordability gap. What land is available in the greater Dublin area? There is little or nothing. Some land is available in Fingal and I am pleased that Mr. William Soffe, the manager, and Alan Carthy, the principal officer, are endeavouring to provide it for housing. However, when a Minister claims that 400 houses will be provided by the end of the year as a consequence of this initiative, it is just a PR exercise.

I wish to mention the shared ownership scheme.

Mrs. O'Rourke

I know all about it.

Mr. S. Ryan

Deputy Wright is in the Chamber and is aware of the limits on the shared ownership scheme in the Fingal area. The maximum loan is £90,000. The repayments, which consist of the mortgage repayment and the rent element, are £116 per week. The Housing Finance Agency scheme provides finance at a fixed interest rate of 4.4 per cent. That will still mean that people will have to pay more than £100 per week. I do not expect it to work.

Ms McManus

I agree with Deputy Ryan's comments on the availability of land. Land is a critical element in meeting housing need. It is particularly important for local authorities to acquire land to ensure housing needs are met.

I will concentrate on the planning process. We are living in a time of flux, with unprecedented circumstances exerting pressures on the system. These circumstances include population growth, demographic change, prosperity and increased centralisation in the greater Dublin region. Enormous profits are being made by land developers and owners and great distress is experienced by those who cannot access housing.

The need for proper planning has never been greater, yet the flaws in the planning process have never been more evident or disturbing. That a tribunal is investigating corruption, political and administrative, in the planning system speaks for itself. That investigation is vital for the public good. As the demands on housing and transport become more acute, we have a responsibility to ensure there is a robust, effective, accountable and clean planning system that can meet changing needs in harmony with the environment and not in conflict with it.

At present, we do not have such a planning system. We could have it. Great progress has been made since the Planning Act, 1963 but local authorities dealing with complex issues often do not even have basic planning expertise. The public they serve is more educated and informed about planning matters and has higher expectations that its views will be heard. That so many planning issues end up in the courts is a symptom of a failure in the system which must be addressed. That so many people are disenchanted with and suspicious of the planning process requires an initiative from the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to address those concerns.

Unless the public buys into the planning process, the process will not work. I will cite one example of system failure with which I am familiar. I live in Bray, a town which has experienced extraordinary population growth in the past 30 years. It is known for its natural setting, with a seafront that is bound on the southern end by Bray Head. Bray Head is a place of pilgrimage and is a favourite site for picnics. It was selected recently by Wicklow County Council as the county project under the EU funded SRUNA programme to develop a recreational strategy for the head. This strategy was to be based on sustainability principles.

It is an area designated by both Bray UDC and Wicklow County Council for a special amenity area order. Bray Head is special but vulnerable. The demand for building land in Bray is extreme because of the natural limits set by the landscape and the desire of many people to live there. Two schools, for example, one primary and one second level, are suffering the consequences of being starved of land for school building purposes.

In May 1998, McInerney Brothers, developers, applied to Bray UDC to build 70 housing units on the lower slopes of Bray Head. The land in question is reserved for education/community use with housing only, and clearly, specified as secondary. Since Bray UDC had no qualified planner, it availed of the services of the Wicklow County Council senior planner who recommended refusal on the grounds of amenity and educational need.

Despite this advice, permission was granted by the local authority. That decision provoked a wave of fury in the town which resulted in 10,000 local people signing an objection to An Bord Pleanála. It also, unusually, galvanised all members of Bray UDC to lodge objections in their own names. I do not think such a thing has occurred anywhere else in the country. All councillors agreed to object to the decision. They made the point that the proposed development was detrimental to the amenity and integrity of Bray Head and that there was an educational imperative.

An oral hearing was held. Local residents and SOHO, the Save Our Head Organisation, organised to put forward their case. Local people invested time, commitment, energy and money to participate in the oral hearing. They participated because they believed in the system and that the system would act fairly. If anybody who participated in the oral hearing were asked now if they still believed that the principles of fairness, accountability and sustainability applied in the planning process, their response would be in the negative.

An Bord Pleanála granted permission. The decision went against the development plan, the wishes of the local people and local representatives and the best planning advice. There was deep disappointment in the town. A week later when the inspector's report was published, that disappointment turned to unalloyed anger. It is worth remembering that the inspector who was commissioned by An Bord Pleanála is the most expert person in the process. The inspector visits the site, reads the documentation, presides over the oral hearing and knows more than anybody about a planning controversy.

In this instance the inspector did a good job. His report was 97 pages long and its conclusions were unequivocal. The thrust of the report leads one unambiguous way – the inspector recommended that permission not be granted. The two principal grounds were clearly stated: there would be grievous injury to Bray Head if it was granted and there was a land use imperative for educational use. Inexplicably, the board ignored that advice, overruled the inspector's report and granted permission without explanation or justification.

It is unacceptable that An Bord Pleanála can have such power. An Bord Pleanála is now responsible for doing serious injury to Bray Head and for materially contravening the Bray development plan, in the process denying children access to decent accommodation. I have no doubt it is also in contravention of the new strategic planning guidelines, although I have not yet had a chance to check that. The board has no obligation to explain or justify its decision. There is no democratic accountability. It provided only one line stating its decision. The board is a law unto itself.

The nature of the board is that it has complete authority and no accountability. This is a form of autocracy that would not be acceptable in other circumstances. The Minister is aware that a State board would not be able to get away with this. The Minister would have to come to the House to explain a decision which ran contrary to expert advice. Even a semi-State board would have difficulty getting away with such blindness to the need for accountability.

The establishment of An Bord Pleanála was understandable at the time. It was intended to deal with misuse of ministerial power. However, it is not only politicians who can be corrupt. Anybody can be corrupt if they have sufficient power and if they are not accountable. I am not saying that anybody in An Bord Pleanála is corrupt but the breeding ground for corruption is there because of the democratic deficit that exists. This is an important point that needs to be reiterated at a time when we are experiencing major pressure in planning terms and when there is a major drive towards expanded development, maximising our housing potential, etc.

People have to trust the system and people must not be put in positions of authority where they are open in any way to the possibility of corruption. In this instance it is important for the public good that the Minister for the Environment and Local Government takes on this task, addresses the deficit that exists and deals with an issue that is at the core of proper planning and development. I cannot believe we have an appeals board that can simply do what it is told by its inspectorate and do serious harm to a natural landscape.

I urge the Government to address what is a simple measure in legislative terms to ensure An Bord Pleanála comes under the umbrella of accountability. If that modest but vital step is taken, the Minister will have the wholehearted support of the Labour Party in this matter.

Minister for Public Enterprise (Mrs. O'Rourke)

I am interested in what Deputy McManus had to say. I assumed An Bord Pleanála had a semi-judicial role when it was set up. When the Office of the Telecommunications Regulation was set up, which occurred the week before I came into office, the regulator, Etain Doyle, was not answerable to anybody. When she was asked to come before the public enterprise committee her legal advice was that she did not have to appear. We are rectifying that omission in the Bill. She subsequently appeared before the committee on several occasions and gave a full account of her work. She will be accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas and to the Comptroller and Auditor General. The general principle is the same – accountability. People put slips of paper into the ballot boxes and tell us what they think of us but the idea that because a person is not a politician he or she is not answerable to anybody for far-reaching decisions is wrong. There has to be accountability to the only democratic process which is this House. It makes for an interesting and necessary debate.

We are at the beginning of a new era for public transport in Ireland. We have to make substantial investment in public transport for a number of reasons. There is the pace and scale of economic growth which is leading to congestion; such growth has led to a huge increase in car ownership in recent years; population growth is forecast, particularly an increase in the number of households; we are also facing a number of environmental challenges with our Kyoto obligations to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions; and increased house prices are leading to an exodus of people from major urban areas to surrounding towns where the cost of housing is cheaper.

What objectives should we seek to achieve when developing the public transport system? Clearly it needs to have the physical capacity to cater for passenger demands. It must have frequency and reliability. It must give good value for money, it needs to be safe and, above all, it must be customer focused.

What can we do to make this renaissance of public transport a practical reality? Since 1994, a major rail renewal programme has been on the way. This has been helped by the reallocation of the Luas EU funding last summer. Under that programme, the track network from Dublin to Belfast, Galway, Carrick-on-Shannon and Kilkenny and from Mallow to Killarney has been or is being renewed, and signalling on the Galway, Sligo, Tralee and Waterford lines is being upgraded. Substantial progress is also being made on the Dublin suburban rail network, with the extension of the DART to Greystones and Malahide and the upgrading of the Maynooth service.

The railway safety programme has been agreed by Cabinet which will involve the maintenance of the existing lines, the renewal of 390 miles of jointed track and risk mitigation measures at 600 level crossings, the renewal of 110 bridges and new signalling installations at Heuston and Limerick. The programme also includes a series of measures designed to improve safety management systems. The retention of all the existing lines is a formal Government decision.

In response to the Dublin Transportation Office short-term action plan, the Government agreed last summer to extra investment for public transport in Dublin. That will begin next April and there will be implementation also of the quality bus corridors.

In regard to the Dublin light rail project, the public inquiry for the Sandyford to St. Stephen's Green line begins on 13 April. The light railway order for the Tallaght to Abbey Street line has been signed and we await any request for judicial review. I hesitate to say that in case I encourage it.

In addition to implementing the largest programme of public transport investment we are also engaged in a substantial planning process for the future. On 4 March I obtained Government approval to arrange for costing and feasibility work on a short and longer-term development programme for the suburban rail network in the greater Dublin area and Cork.

The focus of the short-term programme will be to make more intensive use of the existing rail corridors such as the provision of additional DART and suburban rail rolling stock; the lengthening of station platforms; upgrading of the line between Connolly and Heuston stations; and the development of new stations at suitable locations linked to housing and industrial development.

The development of the suburban rail system in Cork, including the possible upgrading of services on the Mallow to Cork and Cork to Cobh lines, and the reopening of the Midleton line, depends on plans for residential and other developments in the line catchment.

The strategic planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area include a number of suggestions for improving the suburban rail network in the longer term. While these are only at the conceptual stage and require detailed technical and economic feasibility, they point the way forward for commuter travel.

A range of proposals is now being considered. A new inland rail link to Navan will be assessed. The possible separation of long distance and commuter rail traffic through the construction of bypass rail lines will be evaluated. One option to be examined is a link from the existing Belfast line through Swords and Dublin Airport to the western lines. The quadrupling of existing double lines will be considered, where feasible. Provision or enhancement of rail services to the development centres identified by the strategic planning guidelines will be examined. The phase one development centres identified by the guidelines include Drogheda, Naas/Newbridge/Kilcullen, Wicklow and Navan, and the phase two centres include Athy, Arklow, Kildare and Monasterevin. More sophisticated signalling technology to increase track capacity will also be reviewed.

The DTO is working on an update of the original DTI strategy. The first phase of this work is concentrating on a short-term programme for the period 2000 to 2006 and that will be completed hopefully by the end of April. The second phase is the preparation of a longer-term strategy up to 2016 and the target for the completion of this work is the end of this year.

An important part of the work being undertaken by the DTO will be to improve the integration of public transport services. The planning, implementation and integration of public transport services is just as important as getting the money. We are getting new buses for the Dublin area, and there are plans for the opening of new commuter stations and stations which had been redundant. The rail safety study is also in place. In the greater Dublin area in particular there will have to be integration of heavy rail, lighter heavy rail, the Luas, the DART, ordinary buses and smaller buses. The planning can be done on paper, but the implementation of an integration plan will be a huge task and much thought will have to go into it because money and fine plans will not mean success unless there is integration. The integration process will also seek to build on the transport nodes concept put forward in the strategic planning guidelines. It will address other integration measures such as integrated fares, ticketing, better interchange facilities and park and ride.

At my request, CIE carried out a series of investment reviews covering all its main activities – mainline and suburban rail, rail freight, Dublin bus, provincial bus services and public transport in the cities of Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford.

A number of transportation studies are being undertaken. The local authorities and CIE operating companies in Cork are finalising a new transport plan which will build on the fine work of the original land use and transportation studies. Galway and Limerick are also undertaking such studies. The outcome of all this planning work will be considered as part of a review of strategic transport needs for the country as a whole which will in turn provide an input into the National Development Plan.

I am working on a three-pronged strategy for the development of public transport. One will set out an investment programme for the mainline rail network, building on the recently announced safety programme. Another will focus on the development of public transport in the greater Dublin area and the surrounding counties, taking into account the work on the short-term suburban rail programme and the recommendations of the Dublin Transportation Office and the strategic planning guidelines. The third will be a developmental programme for regional public transport which will pay particular attention to cities other than Dublin.

One of the principal challenges which we will face in implementing this very necessary public transport programme will be finding the funding required. The levels of EU Structural and Cohesion funding will decline sharply between now and 2006. CIE has the capacity to generate internal resources for investment through depreciation and is committed to doing so. I am commissioning a review of CIE's property portfolio to identify what cash can be generated through disposal of surplus non-operational or potentially non-operational property and through redevelopment. Public-private partnerships will have some potential for generating risk capital. In the next week or two I expect to receive the Arthur Andersen study which involves my Department and the Department of the Environment and Local Government looking at projects with potential for public-private partnerships. The main potential for public-private partnerships is likely to be in the area of better value for money over the life cycle of a project to improved efficiency and innovation. Any public transport development programme will require substantial Exchequer support, both in the form of capital investment grants and ongoing revenue support for uneconomic but socially desirable services.

I will also be working with the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to achieve a much greater degree of integration between transport and land use policies. The strategic planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area come into play here. When fully implemented, they will reinforce the public transport system in the city and surrounding region as the primary means of travel, especially for commuters. We have to deliver on both the public transport and settlement strategy elements of those guidelines if Dublin is to develop in a sustainable way. The draft residential density guidelines, recently published for comment by the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, are also very important in that they will facilitate higher residential densities in public transport corridors. This in turn can improve the viability of the public transport product.

We will all look back on this year as the beginning of a new era for public transport in Ireland. It will have seen a renewed commitment to the railway and a recognition of the importance of public transport to the creation of sustainable cities, towns and rural areas. We face substantial challenges in the years ahead to achieve the objectives I set out, but we have the intellectual and financial resources and the self-confidence to achieve them if we put our minds to it.

Mr. Dukes

It is timely that we are having this debate now, shortly after agreement on the package of Agenda 2000 by the European Union Heads of State and Government and as we are in the process of drawing up and preparing the National Development Plan for the period 2000 to 2006. The levels of growth we have experi enced here in recent years and the maintenance of our competitive capacity will be substantially influenced for the better if we are able to achieve a more dispersed pattern of growth than we have seen in recent years. By that I mean a more even spread of both economic and social growth across the regions of the country and a more even spread of infrastructural provision.

In that context the current debate on regionalisation is a very timely one. It is a pity it did not take place in better circumstances. It would have been better if the Government had not made such a mess of the regionalisation proposal. However, we have a regionalisation structure in place, which I hope we will use to achieve the kind of dispersed pattern of growth of which I speak and which will be very important for the maintenance of high overall rates of growth and the maintenance of competitiveness.

The imbalance between east and west has to be redressed for a number of reasons. The first and most obvious is clearly the need for growth and development in the western part of the country and the need to increase the west's ability to compete and participate in the marketplace. It is needed also to maintain the viability, growth potential and competitiveness of the eastern part of the country which is now in serious danger of losing its competitiveness as a result of congestion and its attraction as a place to live because of that kind of congestion, and which is meeting major bottlenecks in all kinds of areas, both in economic and social infrastructure. For all those reasons, we should look at economic and planning policies with a view to getting a more even spread of growth.

I am encouraged by the re-emergence of what I would call the Buchanan type of thinking. We were wrong to ditch that set of proposals for an approach to development in 1969 and we would be wrong to depart from it now. I know that view is not shared by everybody. I am disappointed to hear spokespersons for western development are arguing again, as they did in 1969, against the kind of deliberate selection of growth centres that is implicit in that approach. They should reconsider this matter.

A pattern we adopted since 1969, which I might call the non-Buchanan approach – whereby we tried to spread development all over the country and rejected the idea of picking centres for development – has not given us evenly spread growth. Anyone looking at the economic and social map of Ireland today will see that. It provided growth in a small number of centres than were identified and proposed in the Buchanan strategy.

Since 1969 we have had substantial growth in Dublin, Waterford, Cork, Limerick and Galway. It is only in very recent years that the trickle-down effect of that growth has started to affect other centres, such as Kilkenny, Athlone, Tralee, Castlebar and Sligo.

My contention is that had we adopted a Buchanan-type approach earlier, we would have seen earlier growth in all those centres that are only now beginning to show signs of development. We should reinforce that process by selecting the centres where we will push for facilitating increased growth. That has to do with the way we plan infrastructure provision.

It is only fair that people who make this kind of case should bell the cat and name their priorities. The centres I propose should now receive special attention for development are Letterkenny, Donegal, Ballina, Castlebar, Ennis, Tralee and probably Bantry. If we can facilitate development in those centres we will be doing something substantial and worthwhile to support the pattern of growth dispersal about which I am talking.

There are, of course, other places in the midlands that need special attention. I will single out only two; Portlaoise and Athy. I am not mentioning Athy because it is in my constituency but because it is in that nexus of towns in the midlands that, to a large extent, have been passed over by growth and that now require further development. Portlaoise has a potential for development that needs to be realised.

Those towns need to be developed to relieve some of the pressure that will inevitably come to bear on the greater Dublin area if we allow current trends to continue unchecked. I will deal with the rest of County Kildare when I discuss the strategic planning guidelines that have been drawn up and about which a good deal needs to be said.

There are good reasons for selecting the towns that I have named along the west coast. Possibly the most eloquent case for those towns can be seen in figures 3.8 and 3.9 in the ESRI publication National Investment Priorities. The tables set out travel time to work for selected larger towns and major urban centres. There are substantial areas of the country within 30 minutes travel time of Letterkenny, Donegal, Sligo, Ballina, Castlebar, Ennis, Tralee and Bantry. Even larger parts of the country would be within 30 minutes travel time of those towns if we provided the kind of infrastructural development I am talking about and the Minister, Deputy O'Rourke, mentioned earlier.

Making that possible will attract to those areas the kind of growth we need to counteract the excessive dependence on development we have seen in the eastern part of the country. The same applies to Kilkenny, Portlaoise and Athy.

We have the potential to avoid the congestion in the greater Dublin area. We also have the potential to create in these other towns I mentioned vibrant attractive places in which to live and work. We can do it if we concentrate in the way that is being suggested, but we will not do it if we try to have a little bit of growth all over the place. That policy has failed us before and will do so again if we try it.

Planning must be much more integrated than has been the custom up to now. I am not sure the structure of regional authorities we have now will provide us with the tools we require to integrate planning in the way that is needed. Nor am I convinced that planning law as it currently stands will give us that. We need to plan for the provision of economic and social infrastructure together, along with the kind of priorities we have been discussing. We also need to plan some other matters.

Over most of the country outside Dublin there is no effective road transport available for people who do not have a car. I listened with interest to the Minister's plans for the railways and I wish her well. As far as that plan goes, it is certainly picking up the right points, but even that does not meet the need because not everybody lives within reasonable distance of a railway line. There are huge numbers of people who have virtually no access to public transport, but that need not be the case. Lack of access to public transport in rural areas and smaller towns is due to the fact that we have continued to rely on a State monopoly to provide public transport services. There are some competitors. It could be fairly said a number of such competitors – I am mixing my metaphors here – are sailing very close to the wind in the way they provide bus transport. It is nonsensical to continue to apply the current rules for the provision of bus transport services.

There is an immediate and undeniable case for the liberalisation of bus transport, certainly outside our major urban areas. If that were done, it would vastly increase the opportunities of people to live in rural areas and work in a more concentrated set of urban centres. The two, however, have to go together. If nothing else, it is a serious injustice on huge numbers of people in rural Ireland to deny them access to public transport in that way. That is something I would like to see the Government taking up. It is not dealt with at any length in any of the major planning documents that we have before us, but it is something that should be addressed in the context of the national development programme.

Deputy McManus spoke about problems with An Bord Pleanála and particular decisions in Bray, but there is another dimension to the integration of planning. I can illustrate it with a case in my own constituency, and many other Members can do the same. Another unaccountable planning decision was made by the county council in relation to an application to build approximately 400 houses in Ballymore Eustace in County Kildare, which is being appealed to An Bord Pleanála. I do not know what the outcome will be, but I hope it is turned down. Planning permission was given while at the same time the principal of the local national school is obliged to run a campaign to try to get facilities in the school for the existing pupils brought near the current norms and accepted standards for class and room size, the provision of a general purpose room, space for equipment, an office for the principal and so on. On one hand there is a proposal for a major increase in the population of the area, while on the other the school is already inadequate for the existing schoolgoing population.

There is no way we can link decisions to allow further housing development with other decisions that might help us to act according to the needs that may arise. The Department of Education and Science has its own priorities when it comes to schools, and it has nothing to do with the demand for schools and where the population is expanding. We will have to give serious attention to this kind of integration in planning, though it will place substantial demands on us.

I have mentioned the ESRI survey which contains a table of indicative estimates of investment priorities for the period 2000 to 2006 on page 141. In housing, our total 1999 provision for housing, capital and current, was £858 million; the ESRI proposes that we should invest £820 million per annum between now and 2006. Transport investment in 1999 amounted to £646 million, and the ESRI proposes that we invest £880 million per annum, in 1999 terms, for the period 2000 to 2006, which is a major increase. In environmental services it provides an increase from £301 million to £308 million per annum, and in regional development it states that our annual level of investment should go from £131 million this year to £225 million per annum.

I am not going to argue with the ESRI, but I am surprised that the figures are so low. I would have expected them to be higher. If we look at the overall requirements and where we are to get this funding, we see we have a major problem. In the areas covered by Structural and Cohesion Funds, the ESRI shows that in 1999 we invested £2.7 billion, which includes the funding from the EU. The annual requirement for the same area for 2000 to 2006 at 1999 prices is again £2.72 billion, and that is at a much lower level of EU funding and apart from other infrastructural investments we will have to carry out which do not qualify for EU funding anyway. We are going to have a major requirement for investment funds to sustain this programme.

Strategic planning guidelines for Dublin and its hinterlands were recently set out, and they are very interesting. It struck me forcefully while reading the guidelines that I could find only one reference to waste management, and that is in appendix 4. It points out that waste management policies will achieve stabilisation of municipal waste quantities and diversion of 20 per cent of municipal waste from landfill by recycling. It does not say how this is to be done. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government has never said it is to be done.

Mr. Wright

Deputy Dukes's party left it alone.

Mr. Dukes

We had a plan published in 1997 that set out these objectives, but nothing is being done now. Most of Dublin's waste is going to Kill in County Kildare, and nothing is being done to recycle it. There are a few small, well run and interesting recycling projects, but they are not making much of a dent in the overall picture. That is a major gap in these planning guidelines. When the Dublin local authorities and the Government come to do something about this, I hope they do not leave it at one reference in the appendix.

Where possible, we should concentrate residential development in the centre of Dublin and prevent new industrial and commercial development there. In that way we will begin to rationalise the flow of people from their houses to work and get a more efficient use of the road structure. The treatment of orbital bus services in the planning guidelines is very deficient; page 8 of the report states that there is little demand for them. That is because there are virtually none. We need orbital bus services around the C ring and half way between the C ring and the city to take some of the pressure off the radial routes. Until that is done we will continue to have traffic chaos.

In view of the importance of integration in planning, I ask the Minister for the Environment and Local Government to think very carefully before proceeding with the proposal he seems to have in mind on zonings. He seems to favour zonings adopted under county development plans having a life of five years and that these would be reconsidered with every review of the plan. That has a superficial attraction, but it will make coherent long-term planning extremely difficult if it is adopted.

Mr. Wright

If one were to take the zonings in north Dublin and Fingal, which I represent, developments of some of the 1985 and 1995 zonings have not yet taken place, and I concur with Deputy Dukes on this matter. I hope the Minister rethinks the five year life span in the new Planning Bill. Most of the rezonings in the Fingal area have a ten year lead in period, and that allows people to look at the overall strategy for the towns and villages in the area.

I concur with the Minister of State that the importance of the issues being addressed in today's debate cannot be overestimated, as they are some of the most fundamental issues facing our society. I have represented north Dublin and the Fingal area since 1985 and have lived in Malahide all my life. I came to the conclusion early in my public life that the issues being debated now would have to be dealt with. I recognised in the late 1980s and early 1990s that from the Hill of Howth to Balbriggan there was no area of serviced land.

I have often asked the Labour speakers about the development plans, as one of the disasters was that those development plans which were meant to be reviewed every five years have become reviewed every ten years. This has led to all sorts of problems in fast developing areas. Hence we have the current debate about section 4 amendments, material contraventions and so forth. The Labour Party opposed every proposal to amend the 1992-93 draft plan which dealt with an area from the town of Balbriggan to the Dub lin mountains on the far side of Tallaght. That party made a policy decision not to support a variation in the plan. Considering the difficulties we face in Dublin today, how much greater would be the crisis if every party had taken the view that land could not be rezoned? On television programmes, Labour Party Ministers make a virtue of the fact that the party was not involved in variations in the 1992-93 plan. One or two decisions relating to that plan may be questionable but the overwhelming majority of decisions were for the betterment of the county and Fingal is now one of the fastest growing local authority areas in the country.

I have always believed in the benefit of the market forces of supply and demand. If only one developer is operating in a town or city, prices can only go up. Because economic growth has brought people back to Ireland and more of our young people want to live in the Dublin area where jobs are available we face a crisis in house prices. This trend began in the early 1990s and continues today. A limited number of housing units are being built and people are forced to queue overnight to buy houses in new developments. This happened on two successive weekends in Skerries. This is wrong and must be rectified.

The Government, in commissioning two reports from Dr. Peter Bacon, has tried to implement policies that will ease the housing problem. In 1992, when lands were rezoned, there was no investment in the provision of drainage or serviced land. We dealt with the question of land rezoning in 1992 but serviced land is only now becoming available. It is to the Government's credit that the present investment in drainage will make serviced land available and competition will come into play. A sum of £200 million has been allocated for the north Dublin drainage system and £50 million has been allocated for Swords, Balbriggan, Skerries, Rush and Lusk. This will ensure that land is serviced, the quality of our bathing water will be maintained at EU standard and our beaches will attain and retain blue flag status.

The Minister for Public Enterprise, Deputy O'Rourke, in her statement earlier today recognised the need for a public transport service to Dublin Airport. Only 30 per cent of people travelling to Dublin Airport do so by public transport. In many cities the corresponding figure is 70 per cent. We cannot simply improve the road network to the airport. Approximately 10 million passengers use Dublin Airport every year. This figure is expected to rise to 20 million and this traffic can only be adequately serviced by public transport.

I welcome that the possibility of a connection from the Dublin-Belfast railway line through Swords – which will now become the capital of Fingal – the airport and on to the western line at Heuston Station is being considered. We should also have a rapid light rail service from the city to the airport. This is essential if people in north Dublin are to gain access to the city for work and travellers are to gain access to the airport. I hope these two decisions regarding Dublin Airport will be made in the context of the next round of Structural Funds.

Area action plans will be part of any major development in Fingal. An important feature of the Fingal draft plan is that development will not be permitted before an integrated plan is agreed between planners, investors and developers. Services, roads and community facilities must be in place before planning permission is given for any development. When Fianna Fáil was in opposition our spokesman, Deputy Aylward, published a policy document on sport and leisure. I fully support the idea, included in that document, that planning authorities should insist that community facilities such as playing pitches be in place before any major housing development is built. I hope the Minister for the Environment and Local Government will include that provision in the new planning Bill which is to be brought to the House before the summer. In Fingal, through our own influence and with major developers, we have secured community facilities in an ad hoc way. This should be done in a more structured way with legislative support. The provision of community facilities and other local needs should be a condition of planning permission.

I hope the Minister sees the merit of co-operation between the public and private sectors for infrastructural development. The involvement of the private sector can accelerate the provision of infrastructural needs. I look forward to the publication of the legislation and regulations which can make this happen.

Debate adjourned.

Dáil Éireann díospóireacht - Thursday, 1 Apr 1999