Dáil Éireann díospóireacht -
Thursday, 17 Feb 2000

Vol. 514 No. 5

Planning and Development Bill, 1999 [ Seanad ] : Second Stage (Resumed).

Question again proposed: "That the Bill be now read a Second Time."

Mr. Moloney

I wish to share time with Deputy Brady. Yesterday evening I referred to the difficulties within the planning system and concluded by referring to the fact that the level of confidence in the planning system will have to be restored. I made the point about the need for the public to contact local politicians or Members of the House to further their representations. I welcome the fact that the Bill will deal with at least some of these issues. The current difficulty is that applicants have to contact politicians to arrange a pre-planning meeting with planners, seek to have a decision speeded up, often to have the conditions attached explained, and in some cases to have a refusal reversed. Unfortunately, in the public mind, public representatives have a role to play in this regard.

Public dissatisfaction is not just reserved for planners and officials, but also for An Bord Pleanála. I am aware of an application for two houses in my constituency of Laoighis-Offaly where an objection was raised by a third party. The council examined the objection but granted the application. The third party appealed to An Bord Pleanála, and the board refused the application, but cited different reasons from those raised by the objector. I recognise that An Bord Pleanála is within its rights in doing so, but decisions of this nature require greater explanation – a one sheet answer is just not enough.

Many of the problems at local authority and An Bord Pleanála level have been caused by the huge increase in the number of planning applications. Reform of the planning laws will count for very little unless there is a corresponding approach to staff recruitment levels given the number of staff required to deal with the huge rise in planning applications. It is also very important that the Bill sets out details of how an acceptable time frame can be administered in terms of dealing with planning applications.

I am glad the Minister has taken time to address the issue of staff levels in various planning departments. I am glad he acknowledged in the House last week the new functions being given to local authorities and An Bord Pleanála, and that the additional demands of the Bill in regard to some existing functions will require the allocation of greater resources and the ongoing development of planning skills. In that regard I welcome the Minister's contact with the planning school in UCD about the increased need for professional planning staff. I, and I am sure every Member who is a member of a local authority, have seen at first hand the huge increase in planning applications with no change in staff levels. I have been a member of Laoighis County Council for the past 20 years and have seen at first hand the pressures placed on planning staff. For example, there were 1,515 planning applications in 1999, 815 in 1998 and 790 in 1997 dealt with by the same staff complement. If we are to deliver the cornerstone of the Bill on time we need to be strategic in approach and be imbued within an ethos of sustainable development. To deliver performance of the highest quality there must be a serious commitment to encourage school leavers to take up a career in planning. It is important the necessary funding is provided to deliver professional planners to our local authorities. Nothing else will make the provisions of the Bill work and it will go a long way to restoring public confidence in the planning system by reducing delays caused by requests for further information.

I am delighted the Minister has addressed many of the issues causing public annoyance and disquiet. Primarily, the Bill's purpose is to ensure quality development plans, quality and timely decisions and an acceptable planning service. It is important that there will be proper enforcement of our planning laws. The public demands these aspirations and the Bill will ensure that change will be put into effect to make them a reality.

Statutory recognition will be given to pre-planning discussions which will help the decision making process. More importantly, it will help the applicant clarify his application and will lead to less time for decisions to be made as there should no longer be a need for further information requests because the applicant can sit down with the planners in the pre-planning stage and ensure any difficulties can be ironed out. This will ensure an immediate response from the planners. I welcome that the Bill addressed the need to reform the enforcement code and that the code will deal with genuine concerns of people living in unfinished housing estates. This has been a huge bone of contention for members of local authorities for years. The retention permission will only be available to deal with genuine mistakes such as a window or a door placed in the wrong location.

For too many years we, as public representatives, have tried to explain to the public the need on the one hand for retention applications and, on the other, to convince them that while the large developer is conscious of the provision of the retention escape hatch, he has often used this for the wrong reasons. I am glad the Minister is addressing this issue. Retention applications and subsequent refusals for omitting to comply with a relevant planning condition have only helped to give the planning process a bad name. There has been much criticism of public representatives' support for retention applications. Part V of the Bill which deals with housing supply has been an area of greatest contention, debate and disagreement since the Minister first mentioned the proposal. This section will ensure that housing supply will become compatible with the planning system. While the Minister has often talked about the need to transfer power to the local authorities, this is the first major step in ensuring that policy because the planning development aspect of our development plan will be tied into planning; we will have a direct input into the development plan. The obvious follow on from that will be our direct input into housing supply and the arrangement throughout counties for such locations.

Members of local authorities will have a direct involvement in the provision of such housing because the council's development plans must contain a housing strategy, not just enough to suggest, as in the past, that there is a need in each town for a level of housing but also to ensure we prepare a development plan for a five year period. A strategic housing plan should be built into that for each town and village in an effort to tackle correctly the huge increase in waiting lists and meet the needs of the present and future population of the area. We can play a direct role by ensuring adequate land is made available for this purpose. The council's development plan must assess the needs for social and affordable housing and the mix of house types required to meet the needs of the different households must also be copperfastened into the development plan, in other words, as we prepare our plan we must ensure adequate housing supply to meet the needs of our young population. We cannot rely any longer on the yearly capital allocation of local authorities. The demands for local authority housing each year far exceeds the supply. For example, in my county of Laois this year the housing list stands at 690 and the average house approval allocation for capital schemes is approximately 60.

To ensure an adequate housing supply other measures must be taken, such as the voluntary housing schemes response and the Government's proposals for social and affordable housing. The development plan must include objectives to deal with provisions for suitable housing. Specific assessments must be made by the planning authorities. It is important that specific needs be contained within the period of the plan as it will become far more serious and will have a greater impact on members of local authorities due to the fact that responsibility has been placed upon us, as local public representatives, to ensure we pinpoint the area of need throughout the county, match it with a strategic strategy and reduce our waiting lists.

Based on the assessment, a percentage of land should be made available for social and affordable housing. The figure of 20% is fixed in here but the Minister has gone to pains to explain that 20% will not always be required in each area. As affordable housing may only be sold to eligible persons, it is important to underpin the need and strategy involved to ensure there is an income limit for people requiring houses in the main – people whose income will not obtain a sufficient mortgage to purchase or build. In the allocation, the local authority will determine the order of priority of eligible persons and will always be open and transparent in its decisions.

I welcome the Bill and am delighted to see the Minister's commitment becoming a reality. I will share the rest of my time with my colleague, Deputy Brady.

Mr. J. Brady

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate. I compliment my constituency colleague, the Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, for putting the issue of planning at the top of his priority list. I am aware of his involvement, particularly in planning, at local government level for many years and the planning difficulties experienced in County Meath. The provisions of the Bill are welcome.

Our planning system must adapt to our extensive and rapidly changing requirements. The Bill will facilitate this by ensuring the system delivers a quality service to include quality development plans, an accessible planning service and that timely decisions will be made. Policy has developed in the main by Fianna Fáil led Administrations and has facilitated spectacular progress. This progress has brought about many factors which have contributed to the increased demand for housing. Among these factors are the unprecedented economic growth, a major increase in numbers employed, low inflation, fewer people emigrating to find work and others returning from abroad to work here.

I am glad the Minister is taking the opportunity to address the increasing needs in the planning area. Failure to do so would lead to stunting our economic growth because it takes too long to make decisions, although decisions reached may not always be the best or the most farsighted. This Bill fulfils a commitment given in the Programme for Government and will encompass the provisions of many local government Acts since 1963. It will consolidate the existing provisions and introduce significant changes and new initiatives, thereby revising and modernising the Acts. Ireland has one of the highest levels of home ownership in Europe. The construction industry has always been an important part of the Irish economy. Local authority planning departments have had to cope with enormous workloads in recent times. I am glad the Bill also makes provision for greater staffing in the planning area. In the context of the national development plan and its associated major investment, it is important that decisions must be made more speedily. The Bill will ensure sustainable development, socially integrated communities and a better mix of house types to suit demands for different sectors of the community. The provision of community facilities must also be an integral element of development. It is vitally important in the context of future development in rural areas that local authority schemes continue to be provided in our towns and villages.

The Bill is another step towards dealing with the housing crisis and reducing house prices. Over the past ten years surveys have shown that the cost of building a house has not increased greatly. The biggest factor in the escalation of house prices is attributed to the cost of purchasing and developing land. As we enter the 21st century, a planning system is needed which is people oriented and in which rezoning decisions are based on the needs of communities and society at large.

Planning laws must benefit citizens and communities. As a public representative at local authority level for almost 26 years I have become familiar with the problems associated with planning. The degree of development in County Meath differs from area to area. The southern part of the county is over developed while the northern and north-eastern parts, which I represent, are agricultural areas where the population has been declining for several years. There has been an inconsistent approach to the assessment of planning applications in Meath. Despite the different degrees of development throughout the county, the same criteria have applied to planning applications. This has often made it very difficult for people to understand why they could not obtain planning permission.

The area I represent borders Counties Louth, Monaghan, Cavan and Westmeath. The formal percentage refusal figures taken from the Department of the Environment and Local Government's planning booklet for 1998 demonstrate how County Meath fared in relation to its neighbouring counties. A staggering 25.6% of planning applications were refused in County Meath in 1998. In Louth the figure was 8.7%, in Monaghan 10.1%, in Cavan 4.6% and in Westmeath 7.2%. Kildare also borders Meath and there was a 10.1% refusal rate in the south of the county. It experiences the same pressures from Dublin as County Meath.

Local authority representatives are adopting new county development plans and it is an opportune time for us to ensure planning permission is given to ordinary young couples who are trying to provide a home for themselves. While a site and planning permission are required, young people could build houses much cheaper than having to buy them from developers in larger towns and cities. In north Meath one may reside on the opposite side of a road to a neighbouring county but if one is lucky enough to live in the neighbouring county one's chances of obtaining planing permission may be five times greater. This scenario has been difficult to explain.

Unfinished estates have caused a great deal of distress over the years and the Bill will also address that problem. People who purchased houses in such estates were entitled to the provision of necessary infrastructure, including roads, footpaths and open spaces, as part of the contract they signed. However, in the past some builders have failed to provide home owners with proper and safe surroundings. Unfinished estates have often become a nightmare for young couples trying to rear families.

I welcome the Bill. Its provisions will solve many of the problems that have caused much frustration to citizens, local authorities and public representatives alike. The planning system has been discredited and the Minister has taken the opportunity to address the associated problems. I compliment him on this comprehensive Bill, which will greatly improve planning and development regulations.

Mr. Sheehan

This Bill is long overdue but I am greatly disappointed with its contents. It lacks courage to tackle the housing crisis. It also lacks vision and contains few or no improvements, although improvements have been long awaited by the building industry and the public. It is a dismal approach to the problems that confront the nation as it undertakes the National Development Plan 2000-2006. I do not agree with the Minister that it is the most ambitious plan ever for the development of Ireland. His statement is incredible. He suggested that it strikes a balance which is right for its time but it is far from that.

Even though some improvements have been made to the Bill since its passage through the Seanad, it still does not meet the commitments required in planning. I am glad at least the Minister has admitted that despite having made improvements in the Seanad, he may be able to further improve the Bill during its passage through this House. I sincerely hope he does because there is a great need for improvements.

I am pleased the Minister has recognised that local authorities are the key decision making bodies in planning control and has strengthened their position. The Bill provides statutory recognition for the first time in planning law, of any submissions or observations which members of the public make to a local authority regarding planning applications. This is a step in the right direction, but a more aggressive attitude is needed to alleviate the serious problems with planning decisions. Some decisions issued by planning officers and An Bord Pleanála have been absurd. The time is right for a full reappraisal of the board's effectiveness.

I will outline one of the many unpopular decisions made by the board in recent years. An elderly lady from the Beara Peninsula applied for, and after a considerable delay, obtained planning permission from Cork County Council to erect a house on her brother's land. This lady had spent the greater part of her life working in Great Britain and had sent home her hard won earnings to help her parents and family. When she decided to return to her native soil and apply for planning permission for the construction of a house in her local townland, she was successful in obtaining permission from the council after surmounting considerable problems. However, a third party objected to An Bord Pleanála against the decision of the council and the board upheld that private objection from a person who was born and bred outside the State. Was that a just decision issued by An Bord Pleanála?

I can instance another case whereby the people of Leap village and its hinterland in my constituency of south west Cork made an application to Radio Telefís Éireann to improve the quality of the television reception in that area; they were getting a blurred picture. RTE agreed to erect a booster mast in the area and got permission from Cork County Council to do so but, lo and behold, a solitary objector, not from west Cork, Cork city or even Munster, but from Ballycroy, County Mayo, a distance of 270 miles from the site in Leap village, appealed to An Bord Pleanála and it upheld the objection. The people of Leap village and its hinterland have been left in the doldrums on account of that solitary objection from a person who lives a great distance from my constituency who did not even know the exact location of Leap and was never in that area. Is that what the Minister calls appropriate and impartial decisions by An Bord Pleanála? Does the Minister agree with that kind of conduct on the part of a State appointed board? Is he aware of the working of that board? An Bord Pleanála has made some of the most controversial decisions on appeal ever known in this State.

I appeal to the Minister to create an independent appeals commission which can review the decisions of An Bord Pleanála. It would be no harm if the Minister chaired such a commission to ensure justice would be done and to rectify the injustices that have been perpetrated on Irish society by An Bord Pleanála down through the years. How can a Minister stand over the actions of such a diabolical procedure from a State appointed board which is supposed to be impartial to everybody concerned but which upholds the objections of individuals against the will of the people? Are there provisions in the Bill to correct this serious injustice? I hope the Minister will have the decency to reply to my request on this matter on Committee Stage.

The Irish Home Builders' Association has expressed concerns about the implications of certain aspects of the Bill. While it fully supports increases in social and affordable housing, it is seriously concerned that the provisions of section 82, as amended, are unworkable, inappropriate and will cause an adverse impact on the overall housing market. It should be noted that other professional bodies and leading commentators have also expressed concerns about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the provisions of section 82.

The planning system has become part of the infrastructural logjam in a variety of areas, including roads, public transport projects, waste, sewerage and water supply. The balance has shifted from action and implementation towards inordinate deliberation and consultation. Supply constraints have been a significant factor in the recent spiralling of house prices, and increased accommodation costs have the potential to put pressure on labour costs and to adversely affect Ireland's competitiveness. A more efficient planning system is crucial to ongoing industrial development and inward investment. Unless the planning system is streamlined with lead times reduced, the potential for successful public-private partnerships will be curtailed. A number of sectors – mining-exploration, building materials and forestry – have particular concerns about the planning process.

The current legislation on planning and related matters should be streamlined. The recommendations of the Bacon report in respect of the need for higher density housing and more serviced land for residential development should be urgently implemented to alleviate the current housing crisis. Development plans should have regard to the national industrial policy framework providing sufficient land for industrial development and having regard to the need to provide the infrastructure necessary for that development.

Decisive action, not words, is needed from the Minister in respect of key infrastructural projects, action such as the introduction of a fast tracking mechanism to bring forward projects and to expedite those behind schedule, and the introduction of a ministerial decree to advance key strategic projects of national importance on a selective basis should be implemented. The current review of the planning legislation should ensure the planning system positively encourages the development of public-private partnership in Ireland.

It has been said that the Bill's proposals are similar to those operating in England. This is not true. The Bill's provisions are rigid and cannot be compared with the English system which provides that there is no provision to transfer land to local authorities at below market value. An element of affordable housing should be sought on suitable sites throughout the country, indicative targets for specified suitable sites should be set and the intention to negotiate with developers for the inclusion of an element of affordable housing on such sites should be indicated in the plan. Affordable housing is also delivered in England through bringing vacant houses back into use and encouraging the conversion of larger homes into more units. The experience in England should be incorporated into the Bill.

The flexibility and mutually acceptable solutions referred to by the Minister are not reflected in the Bill in so far as all options available are based on the transfer of land, houses or sites at agricultural value. Part V of the Bill will not increase the overall supply of housing but it will reduce the supply of private housing. The expropriation of up to 20% of private lands, sites or houses to social housing will reduce the supply of private housing available to the market and could result in price increases in the case of 80% of houses.

Part V also proposes the introduction of retrospective legislation impacting directly and adversely on house prices. This will hit the first time house buyers in particular and those on average industrial wages. The Bill fails to reduce land prices, as predicted. The Government failed to implement the totality of the Bacon report. It has made a hopeless effort to do so.

Part V does nothing to deliver affordable housing to the majority of house buyers and tenants. The Bill unfairly benefits buyers of affordable housing at the expense of the other 80% of house buyers. The Bill confuses affordable housing with social housing. In certain aspects it is unworkable and could lead to a number of great difficulties, thereby causing a major slowdown in the number of new house completions. Its provisions will not provide any additional housing that would not otherwise be provided under existing conditions.

I must also point out the huge disadvantage under which the planning staff of certain county councils are working. Take the example of Cork County Council which had almost 7,000 planning applications last year. The county council has an excellent planning team but it is overworked trying to meet the two month deadline for decision on most applications. The county councils throughout the country which need extra staff should get approval and finance from the Department to appoint sufficient personnel to deal with the huge number of applications they handle. There is also nothing more frustrating for people who were born and bred in the locality than to be refused planning permission because the site is too high in a level field, the development would cause excessive traffic on the local county road or for some other frivolous reason.

Life in rural Ireland must be preserved. We cannot let it be turned into a wildlife park for wealthy safari tourists from all over the world. We need people in rural areas so we must grant permission for the youth in those areas to build more houses. A nation's wealth is its people. We must ensure that people continue to live in rural areas by protecting and maintaining rural schools, post offices, churches, shops and Garda stations. The fabric of rural life must be preserved.

Almost half our population lives in Dublin and its hinterland. Look at the consequences of that. It takes at least an hour to drive from this House to the Naas Road due to the heavy traffic. That is the result of bad planning over the past 40 years. Satellite towns adjoin all our cities and the bright lights of the cities have attracted the youth of rural areas for many years. Bad development planning in that time has denuded rural Ireland. Decentralisation is badly needed, not amalgamation or centralisation.

There is not one mile of national primary road in my constituency of Cork South-West, an area larger than several counties in Ireland. There is no railway system or airport in that vast area. It is time to call a halt. The fabric of rural society is being undermined by the continuation of bad planning. I appeal to the Minister to let common sense prevail and to preserve rural Ireland for the people who were born and bred there.

Mr. M. Kitt

I compliment the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, the Ministers of State, Deputies Molloy and Wallace, and the Department's officials on the work they have put into this Bill. It is a fundamental reform of planning law, as indicated by the debate in the Seanad and in this House. Indeed, I compliment the Senators on the many changes they made to the Bill.

There was a great deal of consultation by the Minister and his officials and this has borne fruit. Consultation at all times is extremely important in the course of planning and development, particularly for local authority representatives and community groups who are concerned by some of the development. With the economy in such good shape, development has taken place very quickly and people have been taken by surprise by the rapid development of the larger cities.

One of the most important issues for me is the survival of the small town, particularly in the context of the national development plan and the granting of Objective One status for the west, Border and midland regions. More money per head of population will be spent in those regions and I welcome that. However, a major issue for small towns will be water and sewerage schemes. The Minister has provided extra money for these necessary services and the European Union has issued directives that water should be made available to areas from regional water supplies. Galway has a large number of private group water schemes but extra money is needed to secure water from the county council and city supplies.

There is also the issue of sewerage schemes. Many villages and towns are without this necessary facility. The Minister should increase the current small schemes limit of £250,000 because most schemes are above that figure and not enough towns will qualify. When local building contractors bring forward plans to build housing schemes in towns or villages they should be assisted by making provision for the sewerage scheme.

The urban renewal scheme is of great benefit to small towns and five towns in County Galway qualified for inclusion in it. Many towns do not qualify as a result of the population limit of 500. That limit should be looked at again by the Department.

The Bill contains a number of provisions regarding social and affordable housing. The upper limit of 20% on the quota stipulated in the Bill is moderate. It also provides that a percentage of social and affordable housing can be provided through the private sector. This is welcome. However, it is difficult to get builders for projects, as the local authorities have already pointed out. The Department has allocated extra funding for the essential repairs scheme, disabled person's housing grants and the health board schemes for housing the elderly but there is a large number of applicants waiting for decisions and for work to be carried out.

The Minister said the number of people currently in need of local authority housing is 40,000. That indicates the extent of the challenge facing us. Housing is a serious issue for young people. Economic experts predict that interest rates will rise and inflation will increase, which will add to the difficulties facing people repaying mortgages. Housing affects all aspects of people's lives. As it becomes more expensive both partners are obliged to go out to work and this raises the issue of child care and its cost and availability. This arose during the budget debate and the Minister tried to address it. I am glad we have good schemes under the social housing programme. People have bought out their local authority houses at good value prices. Local authorities have provided good sites for families on which to build houses. Another welcome development is that older houses have been completely refurbished for families, and up to £20,000 has been spent on each house.

Organisations such as the Irish Home Builders' Association, the IHBA, while welcoming the fact that the Minister referred to social and affordable housing in the Bill, expressed concern that the provisions of section 82, as amended, are unworkable, inappropriate and would have an adverse impact on the housing market. It stated that other professional bodies and leading commentators have also expressed concern about the effectiveness and appropriateness of the provisions of section 82. I do not agree with this view because the Minister has been wise in the provisions he has introduced on social and affordable housing. However, we must increase the housing supply. Other speakers have referred to this and it is important. If the IHBA or the Construction Industry Federation have other comments to make on this, I would like to hear them. However, we need to increase the housing supply and the Minister is committed to doing that.

It is important that local authorities play their role in the provision of housing. They have a major role to play in the granting of planning permission. I would like to see local authorities making decisions more quickly and that consultation would take place between applicants and all interested parties. It has been suggested that the farming community has a role to play in the provision of sites. One of the problems is that it is difficult to obtain planning permission in some rural areas and the farming community has played its part in that. One of the organisations which has played a major role in rural Ireland is the rural resettlement organisation. It is keen to work with the farming community and I hope it receives more support for its efforts to have housing provided.

There is a feeling in rural areas with all the talk of new roads, motorways and dual carriageways that people are only interested in getting from A to B and moving people and goods and that the people along the route do not matter. That should not be the case. There is a great deal of discussion in my area about a proposed motorway from Athlone to Galway as part of the motorway from Dublin to Galway. Organisations such as the Tuam Town Commissioners and the Tuam Chamber of Commerce have proposed that the road from Athlone to Galway should take the shortest possible route between the two towns. They have made the point that the journey would be ten miles shorter if that direct route were taken. There is much interest in that proposal. Consultation is important.

I hope the National Roads Authority decides quickly on the constraints study which is under way. I hope it takes into consideration that the new road should be accessible to towns such as Ballinasloe, Loughrea, Athenry and Tuam. That said, I know the National Roads Authority and the local authorities of Galway will also look at keeping the existing roads – for example, the N6 – in good repair. Obviously a new motorway is an exciting development and provides great potential for development if done properly. It has the advantage of not disturbing any traffic situation or existing route and it could open up the opportunity for housing developments along existing routes. Towns may even be bypassed for a second time when a new motorway is built. This is an issue which will be investigated by the NRA and local authorities and we understand that will happen before 2006.

I mentioned rural resettlement and the good work the organisation involved in that area has done in bringing families to the west. I hope it receives further support. I have seen families receive poor accommodation on many occasions and that results in people going back on to the local authority housing list. A more recent development is where local authorities buy houses in good condition or they repair them; that is a most welcome development under which the rural resettlement programme will prosper. Local authorities obviously maintain these houses and families are able to buy them under the local authority tenant purchase scheme.

I welcome the fact that the Minister and the Minister of State, Deputy Molloy, have stressed the importance of the Bacon report. They have provided funding in County Galway to facilitate housing. This is also referred to by the Minister in the Bill. One recent allocation of £280,000 was made for roads to serve housing in Athenry in County Galway. Athenry is in the news at present because the local club has again qualified for the All-Ireland club hurling final on St. Patrick's Day. It will not be lonely around the fields of Athenry either from the hurling point of view or, I hope, from the point of view of housing in future. It is a growing town which will benefit from proper planning and development, and the Bacon report allocation is an important part of that development.

Another issue which flows from housing and was referred to by other Deputies is the provision of industry in smaller towns. This is important. We all know about traffic congestion in cities. What is true of Dublin is also true of many other cities and is certainly true of Galway where there is a serious traffic problem. It makes sense that, if additional housing is provided in smaller towns, industry is also provided. Decentralisation has a major role to play in providing employment in the regions. I was glad to hear the Taoiseach and the Minister for Finance speak about decentralisation on a number of occasions and that the Government has said that any new agency to be created would be located outside Dublin. That is most important.

I also welcome the fact that the Minister has retained section 4 of the Planning and Development Acts and has transferred it to this legislation. It is one of the few powers of county councillors. In Galway it is mostly used for the provision of an individual house for a family. There has been a great deal of frustration in west Galway, in Connemara, where it is difficult to obtain planning permission. However, we sometimes see in county development plans that apartments and holiday homes are encouraged. I find it ironic that it can be more difficult to obtain permission for a house for a local family than for apartments or holiday homes. That is also true in parts of east Galway.

It is most important that local authorities have area meetings and that there is prior consultation on many planning applications and developments; this is probably more important than any section 4. The section 4 process now involves much legal argument, so that when the manager seeks advice from the legal officer he is told that he cannot sign a section 4 motion. In the past Galway received a great deal of bad publicity regarding the use of section 4 motions, and that is why having consultation and area meetings is a better way to proceed.

One issue related to the question of roads, to which I referred already, is the role of An Bord Pleanála. The Bill provides for a welcome increase in the number of board members from six to seven. It is important to get decisions quickly from An Bord Pleanála as well as from the local authority.

I compliment An Bord Pleanála on its decisions regarding the protection of the environment. It has acted consistently in one area, in particular, that is in regard to mobile telephone masts. In a number of cases in County Galway it has rejected planning permissions which were granted by the local authority. In one such case, for instance, the proposal involved a mobile telephone mast overlooking a primary school playground. This is an important power of An Bord Pleanála. I welcome the fact that the board is dealing with these issues and I would like them to be dealt with quickly.

To date in the debate, festivals have not been mentioned. I was not aware, until I was contacted by the Galway Arts Festival, that there is a framework proposed in the Bill whereby local authorities would be empowered to create a licensing system to run festivals. There is no objection in principle to creating a licensing system, but there should be a distinction between commercial and voluntary or not-for-profit festivals. In granting a licence a local authority could attach a wide range of conditions which could have serious financial implications for festival organisations. The promoters of a commercial festival or event can recoup the charges from their customers, but this option does not exist for the vast majority of community and cultural festivals freely available to the public. For example, the annual Macnas parade during the Galway Arts Festival is a huge event but it is run on a not-for-profit basis. There should be a legal mechanism for festivals which are run on a not-for-profit basis and promoted by voluntary organisations.

Concerns have been raised in the context of the Bill about turf cutting. Under the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, turf cutting, turbary, or peat extraction is defined as an agricultural activity and it is, therefore, exempt from the requirement to seek planning permission. There is an exception for an area of greater than 50 hectares where there must be an environmental impact assessment under EU regulations. I am not interested in anyone cutting more than 50 hectares of turf here, but I hope there will be an exemption for small scale domestic turf-cutting for personal use. I would like to see the regulations to which the Minister referred introduced as soon as possible because I know he will make new planning regulations following the enactment of the Bill.

The EU states that it puts people before flora and fauna, and I am sure that is the wish of all public representatives, but there is considerable concern that turf-cutting as we know it would not be allowed continue. I welcome the proposed ministerial regulations providing for an exemption for domestic turf-cutting and hope these will be introduced as soon as possible.

I understand the European Court of Justice ruled recently that Ireland did not transpose the EU directive into national law and this is the reason we must bring peat extraction under the planning control system. The Bill redefines agriculture to remove the blanket exemption from planning permission for peat extraction.

As a public representative for the past 25 years, I have found there is now an emphasis on doing things according to a plan, which is usually of five years' duration. Local authorities and Ministers are telling us to draw up plans and this is a welcome development. It gives us an opportunity to fight particularly for the small towns, whether for urban renewal relief, green town initiatives or the street landscape scheme. I hope that local auth orities' plans for tidy towns and schools competitions, in particular, will be made part of a policy to get young people involved in planning and development. I hope those plans will be taken on board by the Minister and the Ministers of State in the Department of the Environment and Local Government.

Mr. Perry

I agree wholeheartedly with Deputy Kitt's final points.

An effective physical planning system is essential for sustainable job creation and enterprise. Changes to improve the efficiency of the system have been needed urgently for many years. Further consideration should be given to streamlining the system to minimise delays and uncertainties which can discourage enterprise and investment and reduce the competitiveness of business, especially small enterprises. Accelerated procedures should be introduced for major projects where significant employment and added-value jobs may be directly at risk.

The Bacon report indicated that increased demand for housing, arising from the economic convergence with European living standards, the rapid growth in the rate of household formation, rapid economic growth, increasing employment and decreased interest rates, interacting with a relatively limited supply response in the short-term has led to spiralling house prices throughout the country, but particularly in Dublin. The huge increase in house prices is evident everywhere and the Bacon report recommendations should be taken on board in future developments.

Many of the excellent provisions of the Bill have been overshadowed by Part V, the controversial part of the Bill which deals with the provision of land for social and/or affordable housing within private residential developments. The Bill directs planning authorities to prepare housing strategies within one year of the enactment of the Bill to ensure that adequate land is zoned for housing and sufficient social and affordable housing is provided in their areas.

The Bill has the laudable aim of ensuring the availability of affordable housing for those whose incomes, having regard to the usual two and a half times the primary income plus once the secondary income criteria, are insufficient to enable them to buy a house in the area of the local authority.

Once housing strategies are adopted by local authorities, future planning applications for the construction of houses, other than for one or two houses on a site of half an acre or less, must have the permission conditioned by the requirement to sell up to 20% of the land to the housing authority for social or affordable housing. This is definitely unworkable. For example, this week one of my constituents received planning permission for three houses and one of the main conditions was that it would be for family members. He was under considerable financial pressure to sell the sites but due to the condition attached to the planning he could not do so. The legality of that condition is questionable. It is wrong for the local authority to impose such a condition on a planning application when it would not stand up in a court. It is bizarre that a planning authority would make the creation of a family cluster a condition in the provision of planning permission for three sites. I advised my constituent to go to the courts because he was advised to appeal that condition to An Bord Pleanála and pay £300. This is a back door approach. The local authorities should clearly establish the facts. To impose such conditions is unfair.

The prices to be paid for the land by the authority will be existing use value without regard to the provisions of any current or previous development plan, if the applicant purchased the land after 25 August 1999. For land purchased prior to this date, either by contract or option, the price will be the pro rata price paid for by the developer. This is unworkable and is a case of passing the buck.

This section alone will no doubt keep lawyers and solicitors busy as the legality of this provision will be challenged in the courts. They will make much money out of it if it remains unchanged when the Bill is finally enacted. I appeal to the Minister to delete this section and to proceed with the many fine aspects of the Bill. This is the most controversial part of the Bill given the reaction of a large number of people.

The Minister's aim appears to be that builders will effectively discount the price they pay for building land to take the new constraints into account. This appears to have been a clever ploy by the Department to pass the buck from its original target, the builders, to a less well represented group, existing landowners. Farmers are, in the main, the owners of most developable land not currently owned by builders. It is perhaps not unfair to say that farming organisations will be less concerned with protecting the interests of farmers intending to sell land for building purposes than protecting the agricultural interests of active farmers. Their main focus is farming and not building. There is a partnership in that farmers with land see the viability of farming in key locations and they are now looking seriously at getting cash for land in prime locations. It is important that is so.

In effect, the Government appears to be divesting the housing authorities of the responsibility they have in terms of one aspect of social and affordable housing – site provision, which is the most important of all. In future, the private sector must effectively provide housing authority sites adequate to meet their needs of up to a maximum of 20% at a cost which will represent a small fraction of the true value of the land. When local authorities require land for housing under existing legislation, they have to compensate the landowner for the true value of the land. In case the Department has forgotten, we call this procedure compulsory purchase. By bringing the acquisition of this land under planning law, the Department is trying to side step the need for proper compensation. That is an important point.

Local authorities are not constrained as to what they do with the land. That is another point which needs clarification. There is a danger that they may use it simply to reduce the excessive waiting times on their housing lists by providing public rented accommodation rather than affordable housing sought by the Minister for the first time buyer.

The first time buyer's grant of £3,000 has been in existence for many years. When houses cost £30,000, people got a first time buyers' grant of £3,000. Houses now cost upwards of £90,000 but the grant has not increased. We talk about encouraging first time buyers and the Minister was supportive of giving people additional help. That grant should be increased to a minimum of £10,000. This is one point which has been brought to my attention. The grant has not even been linked to inflation. We should be serious about helping people and providing affordable housing.

The Minister spoke about the criteria, but only a limited number of people are eligible for affordable housing, particularly in rural areas. There is a criterion in regard to income levels which has not been fully established. Of the 48,000 houses built last year, only 7% were built by local authorities and other housing authorities, such as St. Pancras. The construction industry is building houses and it is best equipped to do so but there should be a partnership and we should not impose a law which is unworkable.

Local authorities have traditionally been able to match the cost levels at which the private sector can construct housing. Is there a danger that the affordable or social housing units within the estates will be built at a higher cost than the private housing but still have a stigma attached to them? We must consider the integration of affordable housing. Will it be at one end of an estate or will it be interwoven with other housing?

What will be the effect of the Bill, if enacted, on the supply of building land? Place yourself in the shoes of a landowner. The 1998 budget and the Government recognised the need to get landowners to sell their land for housing purposes and reduced the rate of capital gains tax from 40% to 20% providing planning permission, full or outline, existed for residential development on their land. After recommendations from various lobby groups, the 1999 budget extended this exemption to all residentially zoned land.

Capital gains tax on commercial land remained at 40%. The Government has created a major incentive to sell residentially zoned land as one would receive full value and face only 20% capital gains tax. However, in August 1999, the same Government proposed to adopt legislation which would have the effect of ensuring that should a person sell, a developer will constrain this offer to them in the knowledge that up to 20% of the land they buy will have to be subsequently sold to the local authority at, effectively, agricultural land values. There is a major contradiction here.

We talk about the role of the planners and the Minister spoke of the amount of development taking place. We do not have enough planners, and I am speaking from the point of view of Sligo. On the last day when planning permission should be granted, planners send it back to the applicant with some excuse to buy time. The competition is considerable and planners, who are not paid sufficiently by local authorities, are moving into private enterprise. We are talking about big business.

The upper Shannon scheme affects south Sligo and 35 district electoral areas are entitled to avail of this scheme until 2002. The planners in Sligo County Council have not taken that on board. In regard to ribbon development, planning permission cannot be granted because of the effect on the skyline and not on environmental grounds, which are important. The upper Shannon scheme was intended to bring incentives to rural areas and to create investment. There should have been a directive when the Government announced the scheme to deal effectively with planners in the area so that development would be accelerated and encouraged.

People can avail of section 23, owner-occupier relief, on their own homes. If they pay 44p in the £1, they can offset their tax for ten years. They are now asking if they can build a house in their own area and they put the best case forward, including submissions by architects and planners but they are told planning permission cannot be granted. Given the existing housing difficulties, we must be more lenient. There are planners who believe they are on a pedestal when it comes to planning.

We talk about creating economic growth in villages and towns and previous speakers spoke about such development. However, investment is important in this regard. At a meeting of Sligo County Council last week it was indicated that ten villages are waiting for sewerage facilities. We should call a spade a spade. We talk of taking pressure off Dublin and the large urban centres but people will not move to an area if they have to put in a pure flow system or a septic tank. The cost to one village in south Sligo to install a facility is £250,000. A planning application for 60 houses has been held up in that area alone because there are no facilities. We are putting the cart before the horse.

There should be accelerated investment in facilities in villages and towns where a need has been established. There is a serious infrastructural deficit in small towns and villages. We talk about the Celtic tiger and the creation of jobs in the regions, but that has not occurred everywhere. The national development plan is seriously flawed in that regard as well. There is a need to create jobs in the smaller villages and towns. In this new millennium, people expect there to be prosperity in their areas and not to have to drive 50 miles and encounter a logjam of traffic, which is evident in many areas.

The matter of retention permission is important. It has been much abused in the past. Retention permission plays an important role in regularising unintentional breaches of the planning code, but it should not be used as an escape hatch when enforcement action is threatened. Section 147 provides that it is not a defence to an enforcement action to apply for or be granted retention permission, after enforcement proceedings are initiated. The section also specifically states that enforcement action shall not be stayed or withdrawn because retention permission has been applied for. That is a good measure in the Bill.

Another matter of concern is that of unfinished estates. A major case on this matter in relation to Carton Estate has been listed to be heard in the High Court in Dublin in October. Section 164 provides for the taking in charge of estates when a majority of the residents request that of the authority, through the procedures set out in the Roads Act, 1993. Where the estate is finished to the satisfaction of the authority, this can be done at any time. However, when the estate is unfinished, the authority will have to take it in charge at the request of the residents if enforcement action has not commenced within seven years of the expiry of the planning permission. There has been a derogation of responsibility in this regard.

The matter involves road builders and some developers who have a track record of not completing work on estates and who have got away with that by forming new companies. I am pleased the Bill provides that a planning authority can apply to the High Court where it is of the opinion that permission should be refused for a development because the person who has applied for planning permission carried out a development previously and is in substantial non-compliance with the permission granted, and the authority is of the opinion that there is a real and substantial risk that the permission being applied for will also not be complied with.

Local authorities also cop out in terms of retention permission and the quality of work accepted. Planners in the planning departments of local authorities grant planning permission to build new estates to builders who operate under a different company name, who have a bad track record of not completing work on estates. Planners in urban authorities use different criteria from that used by planners in county councils.

I come from south Sligo. A total of 35 areas have been included in the upper Shannon scheme which will conclude in 2002. The Department must speak to the local authorities concerned and bring in the planners concerned to inform them that the objective of this scheme is to create economic activity in areas of decline. This should be done while the tax incentives are in place. I am not talking about building holiday homes under this scheme but about people who want to build houses in this area and drive 40 miles to their places of work, and about people who want to create commercial activity in this area. The spin-off from such development in this area is far reaching.

This scheme was initiated by the Minister for Finance. There was not any co-operation between his Department and the Minister of State's Department on what should be done in regard to this scheme from a planning point of view. There is not any point introducing a major incentive to create investment by way of such a scheme if planners are not informed of it or are not prepared to assist in that regard. This scheme affords us the opportunity to create economic prosperity in areas of the country that need it. A landowner in a rural area may sell three sites for £10,000 each, while a person might pay £50,000 for a site in an urban area. This scheme will assist in spreading the housing density and will create prosperity in towns and villages and investment in services. The Minister of State spoke about ribbon development. That a small village that is seeking £250,000 has been told it has been put on a five year waiting list at a time when billions of pounds in investment is available, highlights it is a pretence for the Government to say it is concerned about village renewal and creating prosperity in areas of decline. I am talking about the development of "new" cities and a spatial plan that was introduced by the Government, but it does not have the guts to name the future centres of development under the five year plan until 2002. While council plans cover a six year period, given that under legislation councils may sit only for five years, council development plans should operate for a five year period.

I am delighted to have had the opportunity to speak on this Bill. The rural areas need help not obstacles. They do not need planners saying they are creating a skyline. We must encourage people to invest to create prosperity which, in turn, would benefit schools, supermarkets, retailers and every aspect of business. Decline prevails to a large extent in a region where there is no commercial activity.

Mr. B. Smith

Deputy Perry spoke about the rural renewal scheme and said it was introduced by the Minister for Finance, Deputy McCreevy. Its introduction arose as a result of a commitment given by the Fianna Fáil Party prior to the June 1997 election, when it said it would introduce a pilot scheme to generate new activity in areas that had suffered particularly through loss of population and lack of economic activity.

My county, all of west Cavan and part of south Cavan are included in that scheme and it is very successful. At my request, the Minister for Finance came to Ballyconnell last October and spoke at a seminar where the county enterprise board and the county council invited a number of guest speakers to speak from planning and taxation points of view and a member of a firm of accountants also spoke. The Minister opened that con ference, which was attended by at least 400 people. That scheme is most successful in west Cavan.

At a meeting of Cavan County Council, councillor Seán Smith proposed that the council should send the details of the scheme to applicants who submit planning applications from the areas included under the scheme. The Revenue Commissioners and the Department of Finance produced a detailed booklet on the benefits of the scheme. To my knowledge those details are issued by our planning authority to each applicant in the specific designated area. It is up to people on the ground to make the scheme successful. If the Custom House or Merrion Street, headquarters of the Department of the Environment and Local Government and the Department of Finance, produce an overall scheme, it is up to us as public representatives, the local State agencies and the local authorities to ensure that those worthwhile schemes benefit the people in those areas. There is no point in us asking the Department of the Environment and Local Government or the Department of Finance to do this, that or the other. It is up to the people on the ground, particularly the local authorities and the local State agencies, to ensure that every use is made of those particularly valuable schemes.

Deputy Perry referred to the need to provide water and sanitary facilities in the smaller towns and villages. One of the best measures introduced by the Department of the Environment and Local Government was the scheme introduced by the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, last year, which provided special funding for smaller towns and villages. A sewerage scheme in Redhills and one in Lough Gowna in my county have been the beneficiaries of that scheme. I may be open to correction but I understand that under those schemes £80 million in funding has been approved. I understand from the Minister that scheme will be continued and that is most important.

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak in favour of this Bill. Planning for public services and utilities is probably one of the most important tasks faced by Government at national and local level. The human environment or, to give it another name, everyday life, and where we live that life, has to be cared for. Because it is so important and involves so many different aspects, it is vital that good forward thinking is employed. In Ireland the day to day implementation of many aspects of planning is delegated to local government bodies. They are also responsible for providing many of the associated services, such as housing, fire safety and refuse collection.

In the planning area there are two simultaneous types of challenge vying for attention and demanding solutions. We must think of the big picture and the objectives and policies which inevitably will be implemented in localities, each one of which is different.

We must never forget the important role we, as legislators, play in providing a framework for the development and planning of public utilities. It is a role which the Government takes very seriously, a fact which is evidenced by this groundbreaking legislation. The Government has shown how, when faced with a problem in any sphere, it tries to find a workable solution, not on the basis of inhuman ideology but on very practical grounds, by listening to people and discovering what they want. The Minister for the Environment and Local Government, Deputy Dempsey, has embodied this policy through his approach to this legislation.

The availability of housing and proper and efficient planning to enable the commencement of the major infrastructural developments provided for under the national development plan are at the core of the legislation. There are some commentators – thankfully only a few – who say we need as little planning and as little government as possible. The attitude is that there should be just a broad and rather vague set of objectives without any mechanism to see them put into effect. These people appear to suggest the Government should just sit back and let people build whatever houses they want wherever they want, regardless of whether people can afford to purchase them. However, it is an incontrovertible fact, that where this has been allowed to happen in places such as South East Asia, Latin America and some regions of the US the result has caused many more problems.

The unprecedented achievements of our economy have caused problems for those people who cannot afford decent adequate housing. Perhaps it is part of our upbringing or our culture, but we expect certain things from life and we have every right to do so. If we work hard, the next step is to buy our own home. Most of us were privileged to grow up in a safe, stable domestic environment and we want to recreate this environment for the next generation. However, couples who earn between them what would have been considered a large amount some years ago, are not able to afford the prices being charged for sometimes basic forms of housing. They are caught in a vicious supply and demand vice.

Ownership of a house brings many responsibilities, but it also brings certainty and stability. We have our own four walls and our very own patch of earth that we can call "home". Everyone knows that house prices seem crazy and believes something must be done. The Government is taking action in this regard by encouraging the construction of affordable housing. The amendments to the Planning and Development Bill deal with many of the problems which might arise and which some of our critics would be quick to highlight as "major flaws in the legislation".

It has never been the role of central government to provide housing. This responsibility has fallen to various local government councils and corporations. They are the bodies with expertise in this area and they have been asked to develop projects to meet their local needs. Provision has been made in the legislation for joint programmes between local government bodies such as county councils and urban councils.

The legislation seeks to solve the problem of the provision of adequate social and affordable housing through flexibility and the employment of novel strategies. Local authorities can, if they have sufficient land available, build this housing themselves. As stated earlier, they have many years of experience in this respect or they can approach a developer and come to an arrangement whereby the units are constructed by the developer and then bought by the local authority. However, one problem facing local authority planners in this regard is the lack of land for construction. This is a problem which affects local authorities not only in cities but also in rural areas. In this regard, a local authority and a developer can reach an agreement for the construction of social and affordable housing on land which does not belong to the authority. The developer will then be compensated both for the land and the cost of housing construction. By adopting such a flexible and innovative approach it is hoped that many new houses at affordable prices will be made available to the thousands of couples who are at present without a place to live and to build their hopes around.

We have a very good track record in the provision of public services to inhabitants of all areas. There have been two elements which have been vital in this respect, forward and effective planning and dogged persistence in serving the needs of everyone. In recent decades we have seen roads, water and sewerage facilities being provided to isolated communities. Considerations such as simple financial cost were secondary because these facilities were aimed at helping communities to improve their lot. We must ensure that everyone knows the Government holds firm on those two essential factors in the provision of public services and utilities.

The Ireland of 2000 is vastly different from the Ireland of 1950 or even the Ireland of 1975. The range of issues which must be addressed increases each year. Many of these changes are welcome. In recent decades we have gained a new understanding of the importance of the environment to our lives and to the development of society, but also to its fragility. Concern and sensitivity to environmental issues are not the preserve of any one party or group. In my opinion, the environment and progress are not incompatible. If anything, the opposite is the case. We need only consider examples of industrial decay and stagnation, particularly in eastern Europe, to see how the environment can suffer as a result of stagnation. The necessity to cater for the needs of our people and provide them with services can happen in tandem with care and sensitivity for the environment. This is called "sustainable development" and it cannot happen without proper planning. The legislation will ensure our environment is protected from short-sighted development, by requiring that all plans emanating from local, regional or national discussions must undergo environmental impact assessments.

The industrial sector is more widespread in Ireland today than in the past. We must resist temptation to concentrate the provision of services, for either industry or the general public, in towns as opposed to villages and the wider countryside. We have a duty to ensure that dogged persistence, in terms of providing for the needs of communities, remains and is catered for. A person who lives in the countryside or in a village far from a big town, or who establishes a business in either locality, must know he or she can expect the same level of public utilities and services as someone who lives in a town. We must ensure people can choose to live and work outside large urban centres. We must do everything in our power to prevent increasing numbers of families being compelled to live in large urban areas to gain access to better services.

Cavan County Council has encouraged the provision of small housing schemes in smaller towns and villages. Each year, 18 to 20 single rural houses are provided as part of the local authority housing programme. As stated earlier, the provision of water and sanitary facilities to smaller towns and villages is very important. By putting in place such infrastructural development, new tracts of land will be opened up for housing thus easing congestion and other pressures in larger urban centres.

The provision of services and utilities is ever-changing because the members of the public to whom these services are provided are ever-changing; their age profiles, educational backgrounds and income levels are just three factors which are in a constant state of flux. The public infrastructure, whether it is roads, water mains, sewers, electric lighting systems or whatever, needs constant maintenance. Behind all of this is the knowledge that, at some stage in the future, it will have to be replaced. This will depend on estimations of usage, based on good planning. We must see difficulties on or below the horizon before they hit us in the face or before our taps run dry.

The amendments to the Bill have appeared as a result of partnership – of listening to and being prepared to take on board proposals from a broad spectrum of people. Not only were submissions sought from the public before the Bill's publication, but once it had been published the process of consultation continued in the form of public meetings held throughout the country. During the debate in the Seanad, the Minister showed how he has been receptive to constructive comments and amendments. This is because members of the Government, particularly Deputy Dempsey, realise the importance of this legislation. They also recognise that people who live in this country, the consumers of public services and utilities, have a valuable say in how these are provided.

It has also been realised that the residents of a particular locality who may have lived there for a lifetime or who have decided to spend their lives there have an undeniable vested interest in matters that affect their area. They may harbour groundless fears about certain issues, fears which can be easily allayed by listening, informing and persuading.

The Bill puts in place measures to guarantee greater transparency. The public should never have to feel important issues are not being handled transparently. Everyone involved in the system is a public servant, dedicated to the public interest. Transparency can often mean keeping people informed and providing them with honest, reliable information. People care about where they live and that is why the Bill makes provision for local area plans drawn up by local people independent of, but preferably in harmony with, county development plans. It is important that people are able to rely on greater expertise in important areas which can sometimes help them see broader issues. It is also important that we nurture an environment of partnership between sections of the public and planning bodies and neither should see the other as the bogeyman.

Planning permission is a difficult issue and can be fraught with unnecessary and unhelpful confrontationalism. A vocabulary has emerged which can cloud the issues. People who have concerns about specific applications may have legitimate worries but once they outline these in a coherent written form they can be branded as objectors. For the first time in Irish law, objections are being given a statutory basis which will mean that they will be taken seriously. However, much will depend on fostering the element of partnership to which I referred.

Vexatious objections have often hindered the provision of jobs and services to the public, including jobs and housing, roads and necessary infrastructural developments. However, responsible observations and contributions from the public have a place in the planning process. One of the most important responsibilities of legislators is to ensure a balance in our laws so that everyone involved in the vast area of the provision of public services and utilities – providers, consumers or planners – can approach the system with confidence and can feel that their role is valued.

In many ways this Bill is a milestone and a watershed, and its impact will be felt for many years. It provides a firm foundation upon which we can go forward. From speaking to Members it is clear that planning poses many difficulties in many counties. We in County Cavan do not experience anything like the level of difficulties which other public representatives experience. The planning process in County Cavan is a partnership between the council executive, its members and the public. The council has successfully encouraged development within the proper planning guidelines and has worked to ensure as wide a spread of development as is possible. Cavan County Council and Cavan Urban District Council have been to the fore in providing affordable housing. I commend the Minister and the Minister of State for their housing initiatives and the schemes implemented in County Cavan can act as models for other areas.

I firmly believe in spreading housing developments to smaller towns and villages. I also welcome the Minister's housing allocation to Cavan County Council for the next three years. The public housing programme gives the council the flexibility to build single rural houses and to provide small housing schemes in smaller towns and villages. Such developments ease the pressure on housing markets in larger urban centres and ensure that as many rural communities as possible are made viable.

I commend the Minister and the Ministers of State for introducing this important legislation which gives a firm foundation for the planning process in future years.

Mr. Finucane

This is comprehensive legislation which contains many good aspects. However, many outside commentators have focused on the questionable provision concerning the 20% social and local authority housing restriction on private builders. This measure is an abdication of the Government's responsibility in house building as it passes that responsibility on to private builders.

There has been a significant decline in the number of local authority houses built over time. The waiting list is now about 40,000 people. The figure was 26,000 in 1996, so there has been an increase of 43%. Over a period there has been a scaling down in the amount of funding provided for local authorities to fund local authority housing.

The success of the Celtic tiger seems to have taken us by surprise as regards planning provisions. There are significant difficulties with planning around the country, as forcefully articulated by previous speakers. In many cases there is a tendency to blame local planning authorities but the number of applications has escalated to such an extent that authorities are under tremendous pressure. I sometimes wonder how they cope. I have been a councillor for the past 15 years and we often see applications on a short-term basis. However, local authority planners have to take a more long-term view of proposals. There are times when councillors take issue with planners when they articulate their concerns about proposals without appreciating the planners' long-term objectives.

People are experiencing great frustration in their attempts to build houses. There is a pressure zone within a ten mile radius of Limerick city and it is impossible for anyone to obtain planning permission for this area unless they are the son or daughter of an existing home owner and have lived in the area pre-1990. This means that people coming into the area find it extremely difficult to obtain planning permission. Where are these people to build houses?

Limerick County Council made a submission to the Department of the Environment and Local Government seeking funding for water and sewerage projects which are estimated to cost £100 million between 2000 and 2010. Money has not been spent on infrastructural developments over the years. There are marvellous community organisations and myriad bodies involved in rural renewal. Councils recently established strategic policy committees. There are three Leader groups in Limerick, local authorities have set up local development committees and there are also county enterprise boards. There are myriad different organisations and vibrant communities in rural villages, but proper water and sewerage facilities are the basic requirement for the building of houses and communities. Most villages do not have such facilities and there has been a trickle down effect with regard to the amount of funding provided for this vital component. We are now paying the price for that approach. The £100 million sought by Limerick County Council would rejuvenate all the towns and villages in the county and would provide the stimulus and the impetus to create vibrant rural communities as people would be able to build houses.

The problem is that we have pressure zones and villages which cannot accommodate housing because there is no adequate septic tank or sewerage facilities. As a result, these villages fall into decay and die. There are very good community organisations which are planting trees, laying footpaths, improving the structure of villages, repairing fine stone walls and so on. These villages look very well but their vitality is disappearing because they lack the essential component. Pupil numbers are declining in schools and people are moving to larger towns and to Limerick city.

The Minister of State at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Deputy Davern, recently announced a comprehensive rural development document aimed at restoring the life blood of communities. We have spoken about rural proofing, spearheaded by the Taoiseach. These are grandiose terms but these communities will die unless we provide the proper infrastructure. They are dying at present and the time, energy and finance will be misplaced unless that essential component is provided. One example is the small rural village of Fenagh. If a sewerage scheme cost less than £0.25 million in 1997 it was classified as a small sewerage scheme. However, since such schemes are now more expensive and cost more than £0.25 million, they will not be implemented until sometime between 2006 and 2010. In 1997 the community in Fenagh expected its sewerage scheme to be completed within a short time. However, that position has changed. When local representatives go to meetings in that area we are asked when the local authority will provide a sewerage scheme and when the Department of the Environment and Local Government will provide funding. We have our priorities wrong. Unless we get our infrastructure right, our communities will not survive.

Where will people build houses if they must take account of pressure zones? If a person in my area applies to build a bungalow on a small county road which has a minimum amount of traffic, the local authority will impose a development charge of £2,500. That person must pay for the building of the house, the electricity connection fee and any road improvements outside the house. Development charges should not be imposed on first time buyers or on people building houses in rural areas where a county council road already exists and is the responsibility of the local authority. I met three people recently who decided to build on a quiet county road and who were charged a development fee by the council. That is wrong. There is no point giving the first time buyer a grant of £3,000 and then taking back £2,500. We must send out positive signals to try to bring life into our rural communities.

Many people have been waiting for years for council houses. They regard the Celtic tiger as the Celtic tortoise. When I became a councillor 15 years ago elderly people and families were looking for houses. We are all aware of the social changes which have taken place in Ireland in recent years. Despite the fact that the people who now look for houses are lone parents, deserted wives, families, the elderly and those living with partners, we are still building the same three bedroom local authority houses we built 15 years ago. We should look at the Scandinavian model where a person can move from a family unit to a smaller type unit in a housing complex as they advance in years, thus creating a constant number of available houses. We should increase the number of houses we are building.

In 1975 32% of the total number of houses built were local authority houses. The coalition Government was cruelly punished in the 1977 general election by Fianna Fáil's sale of the century offer to abolish road tax and rates which won it a majority of 20 seats. However, we all know that road tax was reintroduced. In 1994 12.5% of the total number of houses built were local authority houses and that figure decreased again to 5% in 1998. This has put the onus on private developers to build houses. However, we are now telling private developers that if they buy land in future they must keep part of it available for 20% of the people who need housing.

It is interesting to note what the experts say about this new development. Peter Bacon stated:

Such a rigid approach is not considered desirable. There are a number of serious shortcomings associated with a prescriptive approach.

DKM Economic Consultants stated:

On the demand side the 20% rule will attract people into the market who were not in the market beforehand and are now eligible based on the income criteria. The result has to be higher house prices for the 80% who are not eligible.

I listened to a previous speaker who paid tribute to the Government for trying to reduce the price of houses. However, the price of houses has escalated and will continue to escalate as a result of this Bill. As regards the planning process, it could take up to eight weeks at present to get planning permission because of the volume of applications. After eight weeks the applicant could be asked for extra information. They then contact their local representative out of frustration to see if the process can be expedited. While it is good that the Minister is trying to reduce this time frame to four weeks, it could roll on for a further four weeks. He should increase the number of applications being processed by providing sufficient resources and finance. Local authorities are finding it difficult to recruit people to work in the planning process. The Minister's objective is laudable but resources will be required to deal with the escalating number of planning applications.

Will the Minister clarify if something can be to prevent the pink planning notices displayed on the sides of the road from fading? Planning notices should be legible. People often do not know who is applying for planning permission. This must be clear, particularly if they want to object to a development being built beside them. If they object to the planning application, they must pay a small fee of £20. If they do not do so, they cannot object to An Bord Pleanála once planning permission has been granted. We all know there are spurious and credible objections.

People are sometimes deceptive about planning applications. If they do not want others to know they are applying for planning permission, they will not advertise in their local or provincial newspapers, such as the Limerick Leader, but in the national newspapers and they will sometimes do so in the Irish language. I have respect for the Irish language but in many cases it is used to deceive people. If people do not see the planning notice in the newspapers, they will not object to it. Planning notices should be written in Irish and in English and it should be compulsory to advertise in a local newspaper. This may be an extra expense but it is the only way to be transparent.

Yesterday An Bord Pleanála overturned a council decision on a development with which I am familiar because I helped the person to draft the correspondence to the council. It is a pity the council does not listen to the constructive and sometimes good advice of councillors. We know the community we serve better than many people in council offices. Many of the applications we handle as public representatives end up within the statutory remit of the county manager. We try to advise people on how to approach the planning process and how to anticipate the questions they will be asked. I am sometimes mystified by these questions. Disputes can arise about the bricks to be used or the colour and type of roof slates.

I am a member of a county council which never had section 4 applications. They were a disaster for the State. The results of the planning process in the past are plainly visible in any of the tourism locations in the west. I am glad we never had such applications; we never had the situation where people would go to a Fianna Fáil councillor if a Fine Gael councillor refused them. All of us were on the same wavelength and we told each person that there was no point in making a section 4 application if we felt they would not get planning permission. The section 4 applications appear to be a thing of the past as a result of High Court decisions and that is welcome. They were not good for the State.

I am concerned about certain aspects of the Planning and Development Bill. We must wait to judge the provision for a 20% social allocation of development land and the imposition on private developers to ensure that people who apply to local authorities would have a chance to get a house on a particular estate. There will be much discussion of this before the Bill is passed. Many representations have been made by the House Builders Association about this aspect of the Bill.

The involvement of credit unions in housing is an innovation. There was a meeting in Santry recently which was attended by 1,000 people. St. Joseph's Credit Union had decided to become involved in building houses for its members, particularly first time buyers. The credit union purchased the land to build houses at a price which was affordable for its members. Larger credit unions should look at that as a role model. If we are to build the number of houses required for continuing economic success, there must be innovation. The House has discussed credit unions this week and this is an sector in which they could become involved in a positive and co-operative manner. If the leadership of the credit unions shows the innovation which it has in the past, this is a sensible step to take. I was approached by a credit union director in Limerick who told me about the idea. He said he hoped that other credit unions would go in this direction. Between private house builders, local authorities and innovations such as this one on the part of the credit unions, we can supply the houses the community requires.

Much thought has gone into this Bill. It has good aspects which will help the planning process in future but extra staff and considerable financial resources are needed if the planning authorities are to cope with the demands which will be placed on them.

Mr. Kelleher

I welcome the opportunity to discuss this Bill. In doing so we can encompass the entire housing issue. This is a problem the Government inherited and the Opposition has recently been trying to play politics with the issue. When Fianna Fáil was in Opposition prior to 1997 we spoke ad nauseam about the need to do something to address the escalating problems. In 1997 there was a change of Government and the Bacon report was commissioned immediately. The Government acted on the report by making funding available for the serviced land initiative to provide infrastructure which would open up land for residential development.

That, however, was not enough. Coupled with low interest rates and a booming economy, house prices have escalated. We now find that people earning what would have been considered a very good salary find it almost impossible to enter the housing market. We are trying to address that and this Bill is part of the process.

One of the greatest failures of recent times was the lack of foresight displayed by Governments and the planning departments of local authorities. The most serious problem with regard to housing is the lack of land coming on to the market for residential development. Planners must do more than look at development plans. They must look at demographic trends and address the needs caused by population growth and project those needs into the future. Very few county councils addressed that or even attempted to calculate for the future. They are only addressing the problems now because the Government has instructed them to look again at county development plans so that remedial action can be taken to release some development land on to the market. We can talk about this Bill, interest rates and all the other issues which affect house prices, but until development land is made available by county councils through their development plans we will get nowhere.

This is a comprehensive Bill which consolidates much of the existing planning legislation. It streamlines the planning process. At present applicants approach their local authority and apply for planning permission for a house – probably the most important purchase they will ever make. After eight weeks the council writes to them to request additional information. At the bottom of the letter it is stated that this is a renewal of application and it will be another two months before a decision is reached. Every person who applies for planning permission for a house should be entitled to meet the planner to discuss the issue. There are planners who will not meet the public or their representatives who may be trying to make representations on their behalf. If someone applies for planning permission for a house they are entitled to courtesy from the local authority and should have an opportunity for a 15 minute meeting with a planning official to discuss the merits of his application as opposed to getting a refusal four months after the initial application and having to find another site and to reapply, only to be treated the same way. We must address this.

There should be more planning officials and they must be more open, accountable and courteous. Planners are looking at applications every day but behind each application there is a story. The Bill must address this issue. More resources have been allocated to An Bord Pleanála to speed up the appeals process, but at local authority level, where planning applications are initiated, we must ensure that individual applicants are dealt with in a fair manner. It must be borne in mind that while there is a coherent strategy to planning and while planners have an obligation to ensure sustainable development, individual applicants are only concerned with securing planning permission for themselves.

I have major concerns with the issue of green belts. We should stop urban sprawl. Dublin now transcends Counties Meath, Kildare and Wicklow and there is almost one large conurbation stretching from Bray to south County Meath. However, surely there are pockets of land which are peripheral to the smaller towns and cities such as Cork, Waterford, Limerick and Galway, where services are already in place. With a small bit of vision and foresight the planning officials acting in conjunction with local authority members could rezone some parts of that land. It would help to alleviate urban sprawl.

Almost £100 million is being spent on the provision of a new sewage treatment plant for the whole of Cork city. It will clean up the River Lee – we are told we will be able to swim in it again. However, the towns five, six and seven miles out of the city will not be linked to the plant, despite the fact that there is a line around the city which the council is adamant must be retained as a green belt. Cork is not a large city – the maximum distance from one side to the other is two and a half miles. More rezoning around the city would open up huge tracts of land where sewers and other facilities, such as bus services, access to schools and third level institutions and shopping centres, are in place.

Measures such as this would address problems experienced in Cork and other parts of the country and they would not result in urban sprawl. In their absence the green belt is capitulating to development in a piecemeal fashion, with the result that there is no coherent plan. It means that in the case of Cork there will be a poorly thought out suburban ring around the city centre. Ministers should use whatever powers of persuasion are at their disposal to persuade planners and decision makers to look at this issue.

I am at a loss to understand some of the decisions on rural Ireland made by county councillors and planning officials. The population of the island in 1845 was approximately 8.5 million people, yet the population of Dublin was only 30,000 to 40,000. There was no proper biocycle systems nor rural water supplies, yet people lived in the countryside. However, today despite the provision of modern septic tanks, biocycle systems, sewerage and water facilities, people are unable to get planning permission to build in small rural villages. The factors getting in the way include tree zonings, green belts with a radius of three miles and designated sacred areas. I am at a loss to understand why permission is not granted for the building of an extra 20 or 30 houses in a proper, planned manner in any of the small villages and hamlets throughout the country. They could be served by a biocycle system that could be adapted to a larger sewerage system located elsewhere. This would address the housing problem and the pressure on urban centres.

The inability to get planning permission is resulting in the downgrading of the fabric and social life of rural Ireland. Young people are moving to the cities and towns because rural areas are becoming socially defunct. Surely we can encourage and cajole, if necessary through legislation, the granting of planning permission in rural areas to ensure sustainability and stability. Week after week Members of the House receive representations from people in rural areas dealing with issues of decline, such as the loss of teachers, lack of use of post offices or the necessity to amalgamate football teams because the necessary 15 players cannot be found to sustain teams. Despite Government policies to encourage life in rural Ireland, planners are adamant that people should live in big towns and cities. That issue must be addressed.

I welcome the national development plan. It reflects our current prosperity and signifies that we now have a modern economy. Some £4.6 billion will be spent on the road infrastructure, which I welcome. It will have a huge impact on economic and social life because it will open up the country. At present it takes approximately four and a half hours to drive from Cork to Dublin. It is a national disgrace that a national route can be blocked, as it is at Abbeyleix, where there is a half hour delay for commuting traffic on either side of the town. That is unacceptable.

The national development plan will inject huge sums of money into the economy. Will the construction industry be able to deliver the targets set out in the plan on time? The National Roads Authority appeared before the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment and Local Government yesterday. The delegation expressed confidence that the targets on the road infrastructure development it outlined to the committee would be met. However, if this is the case, it will be necessary to recruit outside contractors and consultants to assist the Irish companies because we do not have the required capacity. Large tenders will be made over the coming months and years as the plans are implemented, which will take labour from the construction industry. This will force up the cost of labour which will push up house prices. We must be aware of these factors and address them in time. We must also ensure that whatever assistance is necessary is provided to allow outside contractors and consultants assist their indigenous counterparts.

The provisions on affordable housing are the most contentious in the Bill. We have all received representations from the Construction Industry Federation, the Irish Home Builders Association and individuals who have expressed concern about them. I hope there will not be confrontation and that a consensus will emerge. At the end of the day we are trying, in the best interests of everybody, to address housing and ensure house prices do not increase further and that ordinary people have some hope of purchasing their own home. We must take on board their concerns so we do not have confrontations or appeals to courts which could hold up implementation of the Bill for another six months. The issue must be examined and there can be more consultation on Committee Stage if required. We must ensure that everybody is on board when the Bill is passed. Everybody is hoping the Bill will be successful.

We cannot blame An Bord Pleanála for the delays in recent years as it was understaffed and under-resourced. However, more resources have been provided and extra members and inspectors have been appointed which is positive. The problem is that if local authorities do not receive extra resources to implement the legislative provisions in the Bill we will not make much progress.

Reference has already been made to development charges. I have yet to get an answer from Cork County Council on how development charges are spent. Developers can be levied between £500 and £3,000 per house depending on the area while often a year or two later no footpaths have been provided, the road has not been resurfaced and no lights have been installed. People have paid for such work, but the council sends the money elsewhere and nobody knows where it goes. It seems to go into some form of central fund. There should be a register in which every development charge is available for public inspection, with a detailed outline of where the money is spent. Even though developers pay the levy, it is the purchaser of the house who eventually carries the can, and it is completely unacceptable that they get no value or perceive they get no value. If the system was transparent and open, with the details published showing where development charges went and whether they were spent, those who purchase homes would feel a degree of security.

We must address the changes in society in terms of local authority and other housing. The make-up of families is changing from the traditional husband, wife and three or four children. Councils and developers, particularly in large urban areas, are building the same type of house – three or four bedrooms – or apartment in each area. In Cork, for example, the local authority may buy an estate or the health board may rent many apartments. Lone parents with one child are shepherded into apartment blocks. When some of these have a second or third child they might have to move across the city to a three bedroomed house. If there was a variation of house type in each location it would not be necessary for occupants to move from one community to another. Such moving does not allow for a cohesive build up of community. Every society likes to have a mix of young, middle aged and elderly people who gain and share experience. However, it is very difficult when there is no housing mix and such a set up encourages a breakdown in society, something which must be addressed in a very serious way. We must move away from building blocks of apartments of simi lar size and putting in them people who come from the same sector of society and who, if there is a change in family circumstances, must move to a different area and start again in a new community where they might know nobody.

In conclusion, I again thank the Minister and hope he takes the points I have made on board. Overall the Bill is very positive and I hope it will impact on easing the housing situation.

Mr. G. Reynolds

I wish to share time with Deputy Belton. I welcome the Planning and Development Bill which is very necessary and should be discussed as widely as possible. It includes some controversial and some very worthwhile provisions. The issue of planning has to be tackled as society has changed much over the past ten or 15 years, something not taken into account under existing legislation which was enacted some time before these changes.

The Bill covers many issues and it would be remiss of me not to mention forestry development. All members of Leitrim County Council have contacted the Department of the Environment and Local Government on many occasions stating that all forestry development should be brought under the planning legislation. However, this has not been done. Currently 75 hectares of land can be planted with trees without the need to go through the planning process. I come from the most rural part of Ireland and we have had a major difficulty over the past number of years with people living in Leitrim feeling that afforestation is replacing people. A community cannot exist without people and the population in Leitrim is declining. One reason for this is the massive increase in afforestation in the county. The Minister should examine the inclusion of afforestation in the planning process. This is necessary as a proliferation of afforestation in an area results in the area being dead in terms of human inhabitants for a long time. I think afforestation is necessary, but it needs to be carried out in a planned way and not in the unplanned way in which it has been carried out over the past 30 or 40 years. This Bill provides us with an opportunity to put in place proper legislative measures dealing with afforestation in rural areas.

The housing crisis is the main reason the Bill was brought before the House. Two or three weeks ago I attended a forum at which some interesting statistics were made available. Those aged between ten and 19 years make up the largest section of our population while those between 19 and 30 years, who are coming into the housing market, make up the next largest section. As most people in the latter category work and earn a decent wage, they want their own homes. The ten to 19 year olds will come into this category in the next few years. What was stated at the forum I attended is logical – the number of houses built in the next 20 years will cater for our needs over the next 50 to 75 years. We must be careful about the way we plan but there is an urgency in that regard. If we do not build the necessary housing units for the people who will come on stream there will be a continuous housing crisis.

I welcome the national development plan. Part of its economic strategy states that decentralisation is an important part of the Government's plan. If one looks at the proliferation of people on the east coast and parts of the west coast, where there is degradation due to the lack of people, it would not take a rocket scientist to work out that we need to move people from the east coast to the west coast to sustain communities.

One must examine the concept of building new towns. If we had continued along those lines ten years ago, a number of individuals would have gone for the white coats and said, "there is no need for that." The Milton Keynes project in England some years ago was successful in moving people out of London city. Such projects involve the provision of proper infrastructure, health, education and social services. The national development plan deals with that in a small but not specific way. The decentralisation of Departments to other locations is important but if the infrastructural development is not put in place or, if there are no educational or health facilities, people will not want to move.

The main reasons for people wanting to move out of Dublin are the large increases in house prices and traffic chaos. There must be an overall rather than piecemeal development plan or it will not work. The Government has failed to grasp that initiative. It is difficult to think in a radical manner, but we need radical proposals to deal with the issues which must be faced. The Government, and the Minister for the Environment and Local Government in particular, should consider those issues and undertake one decent decentralisation programme to a part of the country which needs people and development.

The Bill deals with strategic development zones where a streamlined planning process will operate in specific sites selected by the Government. This is crucial for the development of the country in general, but if we create strategic development zones in urban areas where planning processes will be dealt with in a more streamlined and efficient manner, it will still mean masses of people will converge in certain areas and rural areas will be left behind. The county I represent has a low population and is a major rural base, but if it does not form part of the strategic development zone it will not develop. Development must take place in areas where it is needed. The Government will have to consider this in a critical and fair minded fashion and think of radical ways to develop strategic development zones where they are needed.

I think it was Deputy Michael Smith, when Minister for the Environment, who abolished funding for infrastructural development in small towns and villages but, thankfully, it has been reintroduced. It is difficult to develop small towns and villages if the sewerage and water schemes are not in place. I hope, therefore, more money will be provided for the development of small towns. Many people would move from large conurbations to small towns or villages if they had the proper facilities. This is not happening and development land is not coming on stream in those areas because of the lack of development of small schemes. Developers, rather than the State, are being asked to provide sewerage and water services; they should go hand in hand. People can apply to the Department of the Environment and Local Government for grant aid for sewerage schemes but, while that is a good idea, it has not been adequately promoted by the local authorities. It would be interesting to find out the number of those schemes which have been taken up. From my experience they have not been taken up in the Sligo-Leitrim area. The Department of the Environment and Local Government should provide incentives in that regard.

Deputy Finucane pointed out that the number of local authority houses being built is small compared to what was built ten or 15 years ago. A person should be allowed sell a landbank to a local authority without incurring capital gains tax. The 20% capital gains on development land should be abolished in the case of local authority purchases. More land would then become available which could be used to provide more social housing.

Mr. Belton

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this important legislation, but I have some concerns about it. Planning is an important area, but many people are concerned about some of the Bill's proposals. People directly involved in the social housing process have voiced their concerns about planning officers having to negotiate with developers without the specifics being spelled out. The Government has opted out of constructive responsibility for providing public housing. When there were no resources and there were budgetary restrictions, all Governments – even my party who were always to the fore in providing public housing – failed to provide public housing, but this Government has failed miserably in that regard. The Government has failed to provide housing to those on local authority waiting lists. Hospital and housing waiting lists are a feature of this State. When people refer to the Celtic tiger, they should keep one eye on the waiting lists for housing.

Planning has become the biggest issue in Ireland. The structure and personnel are not in place to deal with the explosion in planning applications. The numbers needed to meet the demand of the planning process are not available. It is fine for the Minister to say extra people should be employed but local authorities point out that they do not have the resources to recruit them. Approximately 25 planning officers qualify annually but that does not even come close to meeting the requirement of local authorities, which find it almost impossible to recruit planning officers. All of us are aware of how vital it is for local auth orities to have personnel to administer planning applications.

Before an application is submitted, there should be an opportunity for consultation. Previous speakers said that some local authorities will do this but others will not. This is the kernel of the problem because there should be consultation in all cases before a planning application is submitted. An Bord Pleanála's appeals process involves an oral hearing. Why not have a similar hearing prior to the submission of a planning application? The system is clogged up by planning applications which are returned for further information. If the Minister and the Department are serious, a consultation prior to submission must be provided and it should be part of the planning process.

I was a member of Longford County Council for 20 years. The council devised a programme which provides housing in small villages and towns. I compliment the council's staff on having the foresight to provide such housing. It gives an opportunity to people, especially the elderly, to live in a community with a good infrastructure, including shops, churches, etc.. Many of the elderly people lived on their own in isolated areas and were given an opportunity to integrate into larger communities. It is important that such people have neighbours who will check on them regularly. This was good planning by the local authority.

On the other hand, many people are anxious to live in rural areas. They are under extreme pressure as they attempt to obtain planning permission. I understand why local authorities are concerned about such applications because if, for example, there was a problem with sewage down the line, the local authority could be held accountable. However, as previous speakers said, with the advent of modern technology treatment plants should not create as big a problem as they did in the past. The same situation pertains in all local authority areas. There seems to be a mental block when it comes to granting planning permission in rural areas. I ask the Minister to face up to that reality and encourage more people to live in rural Ireland.

Mr. Kenneally

There is no more emotive subject in the context of local authority dealings than the planning process and if a survey were carried out it would establish that most disputes in council chambers and accusations of corruption in the local authority system could be traced to planning. There is no doubt that at this stage in our development we cannot do without the controls provided in the planning process, the discipline it imposes on our society and the assistance it gives towards proper regulation of the development of the landscape.

A proper planning process in needed. The better it is, the more relevant it will be to people's needs and the better it serves our society, the more acceptable it will be. I hope and believe this legislation will improve the process. The shortcomings in its provisions are relatively minor in the overall context. Some local authorities implemented the planning Acts without any degree of flexibility or common sense and one would be forgiven for thinking landowners, potential house builders and young couples in need of housing were there to serve the Acts rather than the other way round. Very often the planning system is not helped by the fact that planning officers are just passing through a particular county where they remain for a few years before they are appointed to a post closer to home or a more senior position.

Since the introduction of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, there has always been some degree of dissatisfaction, not just among the public, with the planning process. That was inevitable when many applications impinged on the rights of individuals, such as their right to build a house in a location of their choice, their right to sell a site and earn a profit or their right to object to an application which they perceived would be detrimental to their quality of life.

Those who administer the planning system have not always been sympathetic to the needs or rights of individuals, the requirements of certain areas or the history and fabric of towns, villages and the countryside. Shortcomings can be found in any system but there is a clear perception among people that the planning Acts are in existence to burden them, impose unnecessary constraints and protect a third party, especially one which is involved in commercial development. There appears to be a lack of consistency in decision making by planning authorities with applications for some developments receiving approval where it is apparent to even the least formally qualified individual that it will offer little to the existing community.

The planning authorities in my constituency operate well balanced and reasonable planning regimes but that was not always the case. There was a great deal of dissatisfaction among the public there as a result of two harsh decisions. As we improve and modernise the planning code, the time for tackling these problems is now. We can prevent difficulties increasing or even emerging in the future through adequate legislation, firm guidelines and clear policies. For example, the population of a rural village outside County Waterford trebled within a short period following the granting of planning permission for 1,000 new houses in 400 and 500 unit lots. The quality of life of those inhabitants who live in a quiet rural setting, and who could reasonably have expected to continue in that mode, has been stolen from them, with little provision for improved services. They have water only at certain hours of the day, traffic is chaotic and in one location there is a bridge on which two vehicles cannot pass. That was fine when it was a sleepy village, but those days are long gone.

It is difficult to understand that kind of decision considering that planners now have sociological rather than technical qualifications. Decisions like this bring the whole system into disrepute and it can truthfully be claimed that the planning system in some areas has lost the respect of the public. That is not all the planners' fault, but we must address the problem urgently and redress it where possible. I exhort the Minister to examine the training of planners to see where it can be improved and to make it more relevant to today's society.

There has to be a greater accent on the technical side of their function rather than just looking at the social side. I would like to see more emphasis on architecture, engineering and physical and landscape planning with a practical hands-on philosophy. What we need is people who can plan properly, who are sensitive to the needs of others and who are firmly focused on the broader picture of making life more acceptable for people.

Too often the emphasis in planning can be personal to the planner involved with what could almost be personal prejudice or the likes or dislikes coming through. It is well known that some planners do not like brick or other materials whereas others can have a fascination for, say, vertical emphasis windows. One man involved in the planning process told me recently that he would defy me or anyone else to read the development plan for a particular area and find where the planners had dreamed up a future for that area. There is not often an overall vision of where the town or village is going, or where it should develop. The training emphasis should be on the wider picture, a broad vision for those whom they serve.

The county plan is too often couched in negative language, where the accent is on "Thou shalt not do this or that" rather than pointing out areas that should be developed in a particular way, or making positive suggestions about what should happen rather than what should not. I know of one county where a planner sets aside one morning a month to see members of the public, and there are other offices where time for the public is at a premium. This is hardly a satisfactory state of affairs and I implore the Minister to review staffing levels in the various planning offices. It stands to reason that with the huge upsurge in development, there has to be a massively increased workload requiring a commensurate increase in staff.

It may not be an exaggeration to say there is a lack of respect among the public for the planning system and a lack of sympathy for the practical difficulties of the applicant. Too often the planning system is seen as a vehicle by which people can lodge trivial objections for unrealistic personal reasons while planning applications for hundreds of houses or undesirable developments can be foisted on the public against all apparent logic. The planning system is not seen as a tool to assist society and it has become somewhat discredited in the eyes of the public. Any change this new legislation can bring would be welcome. Against that background I would like to see con sistency emerge countrywide, a greater preparation for planners, more staff to deal with a doubling or trebling of applications and where the number of units per application has greatly increased also.

I ask the Minister to consider the matter of planning application fees, particularly in the commercial sector. The application of a fee per square metre is hardly equitable, realistic or even necessary unless the sole purpose, and this is often the case, is to raise revenue for the planning authority. Doubling the fee where a fire safety certificate is involved amounts to a considerable sum. The small industrialist who applies for planning permission for a modest new factory of, say, 1,000 square metres will, under the current system, pay double the fee for a 500 square metre unit. There may be little or no difference in the amount of administration necessary, the length of time staff have to deal with the application or the amount of documentation generated. We need to make the system as easy as possible for those who could expand our economy and who may be starting out in business or manufacturing. There is no problem for the big corporation but for the person starting up in business it may be, and often has been, the difference between persevering with the application or giving up in frustration.

In conjunction with that, and while I am on the subject of money, I ask the Minister to re-examine his proposal to introduce a fee in respect of an objection to a particular application. I know he has given an undertaking to keep the fee under £20 but even that amount of money for an impoverished person or an old age pensioner is significant. In such cases and for such people, the Minister should consider waiving the fee. It would hardly have a major financial impact and would have the effect of keeping a necessary right within the reach of everyone in our society, a principle I know the Minister espouses.

I understand the Minister's intention in bringing in this provision and agree that the process of objecting to a development should not be a trivial one. There are too many crank objections and objections for narrow reasons. The long-running saga in the Glen of the Downs, for instance, is a case in point. When an objection has run its course and has been tested in the courts, it is time to retreat gracefully and obey the institutions of the State. That is not how it works in the Glen of the Downs. What has been found to be a fully legitimate plan to make a dangerous road safe has been unnecessarily delayed by people who do not know when to stop and who do not appear to have respect for the law. I admire people who stand on principle and I admire action by the public but there is a limit and we are long past this limit in the Wicklow case.

Another area of contention which has been provided for in this legislation is the vexed question of halting sites. In common with the vast majority of people here, I have always sympathised with the plight of the members of the traveller community who are caught in the pov erty trap or whose traditions and customs keep them locked in what we perceive to be a lesser lifestyle to what the rest of the country enjoys. I support the principle of giving those families whatever help is necessary. I support the provision of halting sites in proper locations and I have no difficulty in spending more money per capita on traveller families than on the rest of the country. I would point out, however, to those members of the travelling community who have caused problems in the past, that with the right to special treatment goes the responsibility to learn to respect other people and property. I have seen wanton vandalism in my own constituency and the destruction of halting sites with a consequent burden on taxpayers. In some cases, the kind of damage that was done was almost unimaginable and lack of education or resources could not justify that.

Difficulties occur in the settled community as well and there are some well known neighbours from hell among us. These can be identified and can be put out of their local authority houses for failure to act properly. I wonder if a provision could be brought in to have them denied planning permission for a house based on their previous known bad record if they decide to join the private sector. That will effectively focus their minds on how they are less than perfect in their communities.

I note section 44 enables the planning authority to acquire land for the purpose of providing a green area where it has not been provided by the developer. I welcome that decision but would make the point that in some areas a regrettable situation has developed whereby the open space in a housing estate has been given to or taken in charge by the local residents' association, something which is desirable and commendable in most cases. The residents sometimes become over protective of that open space and instead of having an active playground for children it is turned into the parlour of the estate which is immaculately groomed and deemed too good for games. This defeats the whole purpose of the exercise and I ask residents' associations to consider again the reason there is a necessity for open space.

I am not satisfied with the position of An Bord Pleanála. The Minister proposes to increase the number of members on the board to seven. While I am not suggesting any deliberate impropriety on the part of the board, I am opposed to the principle of the final decision makers being unelected officials and board nominees. As with the planners, the level of professional or technical expertise among the members of the board is not required to be extensive so I am not convinced that there was a valid reason for removing the appeals process from the political domain. Consequently, I believe we are not operating the best system.

I ask the Minister to look again at retaining the ultimate decision making power among elected representatives. As in so many other facets of the public sector, democracy is best served by those who must go before the people and justify their decisions at election time. They must take the ultimate test of the propriety of their actions – the ballot box. I am aware of more than one instance of an inspector's decision, based on local investigation, being overturned by the board. While the board has that right, I do not believe it is necessarily proper. This power should be looked at again.

The conditions under which An Bord Pleanála works are more advantageous than those of the local authority. The board has 18 weeks to decide on an application, with the option of a deferral, whereas the local authority must decide within two months. Eighteen weeks is generous from the board's point of view given that most of the investigation has been carried out by the local authority and the board often has little more to do than review the case.

It is time to look realistically at the repopulation of rural areas. These are demanding times and it is already difficult for many people to remain in rural areas. Farmers are fleeing the land in their thousands, searching for better and more stable lives and incomes in urban areas. During the recent meat factory dispute we saw how difficult it is for beef farmers to make ends meet. We must not alone encourage people but actively enable them to build homes in the country, set down roots and make a life there. Easing the planning process is one way of doing that. If we are to pay more than lip service to that principle we should start encouraging people to move to or to remain in the country.

Section 43 replaces section 30 of the existing legislation and proposes to limit the powers of elected members to change or revoke a planning permission. This is another intrusion into and a diminution of the power of elected representatives and I am not in favour of it. Part V deals, inter alia, with housing supply. It includes many good proposals. I welcome the provision under which development land must be given to the local authority. This will reduce the possibility of creating ghettos and achieve a better spread of people of different economic means. I am less than clear on the manner in which the proposed 80:20 allocation of development land will work. Perhaps the Minister will clarify what is involved. I wish to sound a note of caution with regard to public land versus private sites. This is fraught with many difficulties and dangers but I prefer to be more knowledgeable about what is proposed before discussing it further.

The provision of one bedroom homes should be abandoned. I have had a bee in my bonnet about this matter for some time. Given people's mobility, no person will not have to cater for visitors, even visitors of advanced years. One bedroom is a limiting factor and the provision of one bedroom houses should be abandoned, speedily and gracefully. Unfortunately, however, some local authorities are still building them.

Under the legislation it will be a requirement that contract work be given to the lowest tender. While this might seem prudent financially and fair in practice, it will not guarantee value for money for the taxpayers. It has been our experience in the past that the lowest tender might be submitted by an unreliable contractor. This causes subsequent difficulties, necessitating rescue missions or calling in another contractor to finish the job. There should be a degree of flexibility in the tendering process to get the best value for money rather than simply effecting what will ultimately be a false economy.

I commend the Bill to the House. While it has minor flaws, it is an honest attempt on the part of the Minister and his officials to reform the planning process.

Mr. Coveney

The Planning and Development Bill is crucial for the development of the country and will determine how Ireland will look in ten years and beyond. The Bill aims to improve the planning system so the objectives of the national development plan can proceed in the timescale envisaged. The massive building work and infrastructural development that must happen in the next seven years cannot proceed without significant improvements of the planning system.

Many of the aspirations of the Bill are necessary and welcome, primarily the objective of streamlining the planning system to reduce delays and speed up the planning process. Infrastructural development in Ireland has not kept pace with the overall rate of growth, particularly over the past five years. As a result it has also been unable to keep pace with the dramatic social changes prosperity has brought to the country. Social infrastructure consists of schools, libraries, hospitals, sports facilities and other such amenities. Economic infrastructure relates mainly to transportation – roads, motorways, rail networks, public transport facilities and so forth.

In the last decade there has been a deficit in infrastructural development which, unless reversed, will have a negative impact on our economy. It will affect our competitiveness by causing labour shortages, because people will be unable to travel to work due to time delays, and discourage foreign investment, because our road network will not be seen as up to the standard of the rest of Europe. These are crucial factors in ensuring our continued prosperity and they cannot be addressed without an adequate planning system.

Lack of infrastructural development also has an impact on our social lives by restricting choices with regard to workplaces, education, recreation, commuting and the location of our homes. As a result, although personal incomes have increased, public wealth and the quality of life have not improved with prosperity. Three sectors will receive massive investment over the duration of the national development plan and these sectors are the key to the success of the Planning and Development Bill.

The first sector is the road network. With national roads being allocated £4.7 billion and non-national roads £1.6 billion over the next ten years, there will be serious problems with and objections to the development of these roads. It is planned to build 50,000 houses every year for the next seven years and approximately £6 billion has been earmarked for social housing. The implications of this building programme for planning are enormous and it cannot happen unless there is an improved planning system which, to be fair, this Bill attempts to provide. The third sector is the rail network, the provision of new rail lines and the improvement of existing lines.

These proposals rely heavily on the Planning and Development Bill to ensure the developments happen in the suggested timescale and in a manner that is socially, environmentally and economically acceptable. There will be massive pressure on the planning system over the next decade. That is why it is important this Bill receives the time and attention it merits from Members of the House.

Before dealing with specific provisions in the Bill, I wish to highlight a huge mistake in the national development plan, primarily in the areas of housing and infrastructure, which impacts strongly on the Bill. The absence of a national spatial development strategy is a huge mistake. It will result in increased pressure on local planning offices throughout the country and a lack of national direction in development. How can there be a plan for 50,000 new housing starts every year with no clear plan as to where this development should happen? The Minister of State will know what I mean when I say that 50,000 houses is equivalent to a city the size of Cork being erected every year for the next seven years. This scale of development needs extensive planning and direction at national and local level, but primarily at national level. In the past we have seen a number of examples where inadequate planning in urban, built-up areas has been as much a culprit in contributing to the creation of inner city disadvantaged areas as the income poverty of those who inhabit these areas. That is why it is essential we learn from our mistakes and give co-ordinated guidance at national level and significant resources to planning authorities throughout the country in areas we know will undergo extensive development.

I understand that the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, has announced that a national spatial strategy will be put in place as part of the national development plan and I accept that. However, the terms of reference for this spatial strategy have yet to be decided, unless the Minister can enlighten me otherwise, so we do not know how comprehensive it will be. It appears that we will not see this strategy until 2002, almost one-third through the lifetime of the plan, when over 100,000 houses will have been built and many of the infrastructural developments will have commenced and be well under way. If ever there was a case of backward planning by the Government, this is it. A spatial strategy should have decided the priorities for the Bill and also for the national development plan, ensuring co-ordination and consistency between projects instead of being the afterthought it is.

What we needed before the introduction of the Bill and the announcement of the national development plan was a spatial plan which, in basic terms, comprised a map of Ireland outlining clearly where, in the view of the Government, the following provisions should be made. Housing is the first and most important area, which would include new towns and cities or nodes of development. I was encouraged to hear a previous speaker talk of the importance of developing rural areas. Despite all the talk of many rural people moving to city areas, 40% of the population still live in what I would classify as rural towns and villages and rural areas. We need to try to revitalise that and, through a national spatial study, ensure that the majority of development happens in towns which need an influx of population and wealth and which can provide a community base for people who want to set up a new home, something the outskirts of Dublin, Cork, Limerick or Galway cannot do without contributing to urban sprawl.

The second area which should have been outlined was recreational and sporting facilities integrated with housing. The previous speaker referred to green areas which need to be provided with developments. However, there is no point providing a green area which in many cases is surrounded by a road and, in certain circumstances as has been pointed out, is kept to perfection so that children are not even allowed to kick a football on it. That is not providing recreational space. Green area there does not translate to an area used in a beneficial way by a community living there, and that is an area the Bill must examine in greater detail.

Areas where well designed, high density housing should predominate should be highlighted in a national spatial study. They should primarily be near enhanced transport links. It is an area which is dealt with to some extent in the Bacon report but is not enforced in the Bill. We also need to plan where we will locate new motorways, enhanced rail links and waste disposal facilities, which may make local planning decisions somewhat easier if they are given guidance and a suggestion about how an overall plan should work.

I wish to deal primarily with Part V which relates to housing supply for the years ahead. It is an area on which I have focused so far. The Minister does not need me to tell him that the housing problem is huge. A number of challenges must be met by the Bill: first is the issue of demand outstripping supply and, therefore, driving up the price of houses and development land; second is trying to supply sufficient social housing to those who cannot afford to purchase or build homes for themselves and third is the issue of integrating social housing with private housing so that mistakes of the past which resulted in serious social implications do not happen again.

It has been generally commented that Part V does nothing to increase the overall supply of private housing. Some suggest that it may reduce the supply of private housing by 10% to 20% if developers are forced into supplying social housing as part of their overall private developments. The question of how we integrate social housing with private housing is a difficult one to answer. One thing is certain; we must provide between 10,000 and 15,000 new housing starts every year to make an impact on our housing lists. The assessment of housing needs in 1999 recorded 39,000 households compared with 26,000 households in 1996 seeking social housing. This is a frightening statistic and there are many reasons for it. For many people, the reason is genuine poverty. Many have an income of less than £10,000, which means they are not even close to being able to afford or partially afford their own home. Another reason is the unaffordability of houses for middle and low income earners. These are people who do not want the assistance of the State but are forced to join housing lists because of housing prices.

The Government's original proposal in section 82 which enabled housing or planning authorities in specific applications for permission to build housing on land zoned residential to require the developer to transfer to the housing authority a portion of the land not greater than 20% or a specific percentage for social housing in the county development plan was and is a flaw in the Bill. I understand the Minister has introduced a correction measure to try to water down the requirement on developers to provide and sell social housing for an affordable price. Like the previous speaker, I would like the Minister to clarify exactly what is the position at this stage. The implications of this are that it will increase the price of the non-social aspect of developments so that private house buyers will suffer the cost of the measure. That is unacceptable because it is recreating the vicious circle. One of the reasons so many people are on local authority housing waiting lists is that people cannot afford to buy their own houses.

Under the original measure, the compensation paid to developers for the land transferred to the planning authority was the value of the land in its use before it was zoned, which in some cases is the agricultural price. I understand this has now been changed and I would appreciate it if the Minister would clarify that for me. This is a part of the Bill which has caused many land owners and developers to delay developing land in the hope that this aspect of the Bill will be changed. As a result, the supply of houses is being slowed down and land zoned for residential use in certain areas is not being developed. This is increasing demand and reducing supply which is the essence of the housing problem.

If developers are to build social housing as part of their development, the Minister must ensure these houses are mixed well within the overall plan of the estate. If 80 houses in a development of 100 houses are built to a high specification and the remaining 20 houses fulfil the builder's social housing planning requirement, the last thing I want to see is the social housing placed in a corner of the development. The point of requiring the developer to build social housing is to ensure a mix, and yet that will not happen in the development if the social housing is pushed into one corner. There is a frightening development in urban areas whereby there are private housing developments surrounded by walls, which are topped with barred wire in many cases, and big gates, and outside there is social housing. That is the last thing we want to see happening. If private developers are to be required to build social housing or sell land to local authorities, then that must be intermingled with the private housing development. There must not be a huge gap between the private houses and the social houses. Otherwise the policy of integration will fail.

The Bill should include a provision to promote in every possible way the shared ownership scheme for people who are on the housing list. There is a huge difference between a person who owns part of his or her house and a person who is renting. That difference is evident in the way the person looks after that premises. If a person has a sense of responsibility and ownership of a house, he or she will look after it much better than if he or she is renting and only there for a time. For example, the cost of maintenance of social housing incurred by Cork County Council last year was greater than the cost of building new housing units there. That speaks volumes about the way people value their houses when they are renting. The Government must ensure that we maximise the number of people who feel they have a share in the ownership of their houses to ensure they look after the houses as well as possible.

If the Government expects many of the provisions in the Bill to work, it will need to allocate significant resources to planning authorities so that target planning application times can be met. I am a member of the local authority and last year 7,000 planning applications passed through County Hall, Cork. The planning authorities just cannot cope. There is a need for more staff and office space. There is a need to decentralise planning offices as much as possible so that people will not need to travel long distances from west Cork, for example, to the planning office in the city to inquire about a decision.

I welcome the general thrust of the Bill. It is a move in the right direction in that the Minister wants to streamline planning and improve the system, but a national spatial study should be undertaken and a plan should be put in place as soon as possible in order that the national development plan and the Bill will have a more focused direction, and that we all realise the challenges ahead.

Mr. Gormley

During the last election campaign, the Green Party promised a more people friendly and community friendly planning system which would ensure greater transparency, efficiency and public participation. Fianna Fáil promised it would put people before politics but this Bill achieves the opposite. The politics of development and developer take precedence over the participation of ordinary people, and who better to represent developers than the party of developers, Fianna Fáil?

The aim or mission statement of the Bill is essentially to speed up the process but it has been cleverly put forward as a Bill to improve the planning process. It is in a sense reminiscent of the introduction of the EPA Bill which was seen at the time as a great step forward for environmental protection, but the real agenda was to stop all those annoying environmentalists from objecting to industry in places like Cork harbour, and the then Minister for Industry and Commerce, Deputy O'Malley, said as much. Therefore, there was this false dichotomy between planning and legitimate environmental concerns, and I welcome the fact that the Bill addresses this problem to some extent. However, as a result of that dichotomy, in the minds of many people the EPA became an industrial licensing authority. What is needed is a better resourced environmental protection agency with greater powers.

Let us be clear that the Bill is not about protecting the environment or sustainability but about protecting vested interests. Now we learn that the Minister intends to amend the Bill to enable the fast tracking of road projects which will form part of the national development plan. The national development plan is a blueprint for unsustainability. It will result in more destruction of habitat and countryside and huge increases in carbon dioxide emissions. There is a clear imbalance between investment in roads and public transport. Why will the Minister not fast track the development of public transport, eco villages or, indeed, housing provisions or wind farm projects, particularly those off-shore which are inherently ecologically sustainable and yet have been ignored?

Mr. Dempsey

Because there are many environmentalists, led by the Deputy's party, opposing wind farms also, as the Deputy will be aware.

Mr. Gormley

Not off-shore developments. In the case of the Glen of the Downs a lesson has been learned and they feel they must get rid of these "pesky" environmentalists.

I ask the Minister to address a problem, to which no other speaker referred, that is tree preservation orders. The Department must adopt a completely different approach to this. There are only two tree preservation orders in Dublin. The system does not work. I would ask the Minister to look at a different approach entirely whereby trees are protected and one must apply for a tree felling licence. That would allow for greater sustainability. I hope the Minister will look at that but unfortunately he may just ignore that suggestion.

The Bill means that members of the public who wish to object to a planning application must pay a fee. Residents associations, community groups and concerned individuals find it difficult enough already when they attempt to challenge developers who have no difficulty when it comes to resources. The proposal of the Minister, Deputy Dempsey, serves to create an even more inequitable system. If anything, the Bill should provide resources for groups who challenge these developers. I have received complaints from my own constituents and if I am getting complaints from people in Rathgar and Ballsbridge, one can imagine what it is like for those people in Ringsend who are trying to challenge developers who have vast budgets and can hire the best barristers for an oral hearing. The fee, to which I refer, is totally undemocratic and erodes people's confidence in the planning system.

The Bill states that an objection must be lodged before an appeal can be heard. We know planning conditions can be attached and that the very nature of an appeal can be changed, so why are we including this provision? It is ridiculous. If people are being asked to pay more money, what are they getting in return? Are they getting greater efficiency, more transparency, more planners and a better all round service? The answer, I am afraid, is no. The Bill will not provide that.

A small concession could have been made in relation to notification. Why, for example, does this Bill not make it mandatory on local authorities to have applications on the world wide web? This is, after all, the digital age. This Bill is to set the terms for planning in the 21st century and yet we are still talking about notification in the newspaper or on the site. Site notices can be missed. Look at what happened recently in Sandymount where the Presbyterian church, a beautiful landmark, was destroyed. This site notice was placed on the front gate, as required, but the gate was always open so one could not see it. Few people, if any, saw it.

An Taisce has made another proposal, that is, to make site notices more visible and that one has a type of photomontage. If I tried to imagine a photomontage for Sandymount church, it would feature a beautiful church and then a picture of a bulldozer beside it so we could see exactly what was going to happen. That would explain in graphic detail to the public what they would get.

If planning applications appeared on the Internet with the full address, finding an application would be much easier for residents associations. By simply typing in Dublin 4, Rathgar or Rathmines, all those applications would come up. Relevant documents could be posted on the net, such as further information. This is the way things should be done. A modern planning process should embrace new technologies but this Bill simply ignores them. If the Minister has the political will, this could be changed on Committee Stage; it is a small concession.

Sustainability can be helped by technology. This Bill recognises – I welcome it to that extent – that the all important standard for planning permission will be changed from proper planning and development to proper planning and sustainable development. The problem here is that there is no definition of sustainability. We could take the Brundland definition of sustainability and perhaps it could be inserted in the Bill. It could, however, be simplified as development which improves the quality of life for present and future generations. It should mean the real eco auditing of various projects, something the Government promised to do before coming into office. Above all else, it would entail a new measurement of progress in society. GDP is a very crude measurement done on a calculator without a minus sign. This Bill would have more meaning if it were placed within the context of an overall sustainability strategy or, as was said by the previous speaker, a national spatial strategy. If that does not happen, Kilkenny, parts of Louth and even as far as Dundalk will become part of the greater Dublin area. I travelled to Skerries the other night and there is no difference anymore – no green space. We will get that continued sprawl because there is no strategy.

Nothing is more unsustainable than unauthorised development. It makes a mockery of our planning process and adds to the frustration of residents' groups. I welcome the fact this Bill provides for the mandatory enforcement of planning law. Some of my constituents in Ballsbridge live beside Mount Herbert Hotel and have found it impossible to get Dublin Corporation to enforce planning conditions. I hope this Bill will improve the situation.

However, the practice of retention of use should be stopped. This worst example of this occurred in my constituency where a company, Bio-burn, built an incinerator without planning permission. I eventually got the corporation to deal with this matter but it was very difficult. I saw the affidavits in court which showed that dioxin levels from this incinerator were hundreds of times the acceptable level. When I revealed this, I was brought to the High Court for contempt of court. I became aware of the imbalance of power in the planning process. Enforcement officers will say there is little point bringing such matters to court as one will inevitability suffer costs and will always lose. How many unauthorised developments have been bulldozed, as happens in the UK, for example? A case could have been made 40 years ago under the 1963 Act that retention of use was permissible, but that is no longer the case. We have to re-examine that concept.

I am concerned about the definition of "exempted development". This will now include development carried out on behalf of, or in partnership with, the local authority. Will this mean private/public partnerships will come under the scope of this provision? Will the proposed eastern bypass which will dig up Sandymount Strand not require proper planning permission? Will the proposed incinerator in Ringsend not require normal planning permission? We have already seen the Minister's attitude towards the potential problems.

When I spoke at a meeting about incineration in Ringsend at the beginning of December last year I explained that the Minister had a crucial role to play in this development as he had to authorise the environmental impact assessment. I undertook to put the Minister under pressure in this House but, lo and behold, on 23 December, he introduced S.I. 431 of 1999 transferring this power to the EPA, which was very convenient. I support the amendment put forward by An Taisce on exempted development in section 4.

On environmental impact assessments in general, we should recognise that environmental consultants are, in effect, hired guns and that there is a greater need for independence. The Minister may be aware of the story told by Professor Paul Connett about the difference between a mathematician, a philosopher and an environmental consultant. If one asks the mathematician what one and one is, he will say two; if one asks the philosopher, he will say it depends what one means by one and if one asks the environmental consultant he will say shut the door and tell him what one wants it to be. That is the situation we face here.

We need an updated EPA with more resources and more clout. If that was the case, perhaps it could carry out the EIS paid for by the developer. That is the way we should go otherwise self-regulation is part of the planning process from the beginning. Indeed, the Minister's strategy is based on fast tracking, self-regulation and end of pipe solutions, all of which will perhaps endear him to industry and developers but which will have disastrous consequences for the environment far into the future. Independence is vital if we are to retain the confidence of the public in the planning system.

The way An Bord Pleanála operates must be examined. The manner in which people are appointed must be transparent and accountable. I agree with other speakers that the Bill should provide for a statement of reasons where the board departs from the inspector's report.

The Bill also seeks to deal with the housing problem. This Government has recognised at long last that we have a housing crisis. All of us, as public representatives, deal with many people who are in a desperate situation. It is seldom said that the artificially low interest rates are leading to considerable speculation. Houses in my area have gone from £50,000 to about £150,000 in seven years. Like other Deputies, I believe that what the Minister is trying to do will happen too slowly. We have already seen in the Dublin dock lands area that the 20% provision has not worked. Not one developer has come on board. They will resist this with all their might and will challenge it.

Another way of tackling this would have been the concept of an annual development land tax. Various forms of annual land taxes have brought social and economic sustainability all over the world and could do so in Ireland as well. A land tax is not to be confused with rates, which increase with improvements in property and partly taxes enterprise and investment. Land taxes apply only to the land a building occupies or may occupy and is, therefore, a green tax encouraging efficient use of a vital natural resource.

The annual development land tax concept I propose is more limited and applies only to undeveloped green and brown field sites, the value of which have increased without any input from the owner. The Green Party believes that replacing some income and capital taxes with an annual tax levied on development land is the most efficient and equitable method of ensuring affordable and sustainable housing development in the Irish context.

Debate adjourned.