PLANNING & DEVELOPMENT BILL WILL HELP CLEAN UP PLANNING LEGACY MESS

"This Government has inherited many legacy planning issues arising from bad planning decisions, poor planning enforcement, lack of building control oversight, and the light touch regulation that was part of the property bubble, which has left a whole generation of our citizens in negative equity. Priory Hall and Dublin's North Fringe area are in my Dublin North East constituency and were at the epicentre of bad planning debacles."

"However, the Government has provided solutions to the residents in Priory Hall that are now underway, and provided solutions also to those affected by the problem of pyrite which are now also being progressed. This government is cleaning up the mess left by the alliance of FF, builders, and bankers and are dealing with the unfinished estates legacy."

"These are solutions that deal with problems that should not have been allowed to occur. That they did occur demonstrates that the planning system and the legislation underpinning it were not fit for purpose. As has been indicated on a number of occasions by the Minister of State, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, and Minister Phil Hogan in recent months, a commitment has already been given to review the Planning and Development Act, and I believe a new planning bill will be forthcoming in 2014 primarily for the purposes of implementing the recommendations of the Mahon tribunal, which I very much welcome, having been a councillor in Dublin during the period when so much abuse of the planning system was perpetrated in North County Dublin. The Baldoyle, and Cloghran/Cargobridge Mahon Report modules clearly illustrate the level of corruption that was taking place at that time and names the councillors who were in receipt of corrupt payments."

"In relation to the Mahon Tribunal itself there are a number of outstanding issues which, I believe, are relevant to this Bill. When the Mahon Report was debated in the Dail last year the debate did not include the Carrickmines module because of pending court cases at that time. The court case collapsed last summer when the main witness became ill, and I believe that it would now be proper that the Carrickmines module should now be debated fully following the publication of this chapter of the report. I believe that the Dail should have a full debate also on the entire Mahon Report as a result of the the collapse of the court cases against one sitting, and three former,
Dublin County councillors. I would ask you Minister to arrange this."

"I want to outline a couple of items in the Bill that Deputy Murphy has brought forward that are of interest to me.
Section 6 proposes that planning permissions be fully compliant with local area plans. There is some merit in this proposal but care needs to be taken that the introduction of such a provision does not introduce undue inflexibility into the system."

"Deputy Catherine Murphy's proposals in sections 8 to 10, inclusive, of the Bill relate to extending the duration of planning permission. These proposals require that applications for extensions of permission have to comply with the requirements of newspaper notices, site notices and all of the other public participation requirements of the Aarhus Convention. This appears to make sense. I can see no difficulty with these sections, although I am open to being made aware of any that arise."

"I would support looking at Section 180A(2) as proposed, which would require the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to make regulations providing for the phased redemption of a bond or security which a planning authority may specify as a condition to be attached to a planning permission; and the index linking of bonds or securities. As Minister Hogan said previously, this proposal is well-motivated and worthy of consideration and it has some practical implications which merit further consideration."

I am glad that the Government will be working with Deputy Murphy on this Bill, as the work she has done is solid.