Limerick Fine Gael TD Patrick O’Donovan has asked the Minister for the Environment to review the position of organisations that are currently allowed to bring planning decisions to An Bord Pleannála without having been an original objector to a planning application. Patrick O’Donovan was speaking during a Dáil debate on planning and he criticised what he termed was an anti-rural bias by un elected and unaccountable people who were able to delay planning applications causing huge problems for communities and individuals, especially in rural Ireland without ever being held to account for their actions.
Patrick O’Donovan gave the example of a recent planning application for a facility in Foynes which had gone through a rigorous planning process within the Local Authority only to be appealed to An Bord Pleannála at the last minute. He told the Dáil that during the time he had bene a member of Limerick County Council that planning for one-off rural houses was a major issue and unfortunately a very elite mind set had been allowed to dictate the terms of where people could live, work and rear a family in rural communities and he urged the Minister to call a halt to the practice. Speaking after the debate Patrick O’Donovan said that he would be again raising the need to have the role of these outside bodies reviewed and their powers limited. He said that rarely, if ever, are any of these objectors from the area concerned yet they can play havoc with people’s lives. He added that it wasn’t just commercial and industrial applications which had fallen foul of these objectors; domestic dwelling houses in rural areas were also the focus of the anti-rural planning lobby.
Deputy O’Donovan said that he welcomed the Minister’s commitment to appoint an independent planning regulator and he asked Alan Kelly to extend the role of the regulator beyond what is envisaged so as to allow people who believe that the Local Authority may have acted improperly, or have failed to act to get the regulator involved. He said that no one should be above the law when it comes to planning and it was simply not acceptable that Council’s in some cases were failing to carry out their role. In some cases where Council’s had granted planning permission to themselves the quality of work could be questioned and he said that the new planning regulator should have a role in that area. He said that the Government had inherited a planning mess, among a whole pile of other messes from the last administration. Poorly built and badly planned houses were a legacy of the Celtic Tiger that this Government was left to deal with and while he admitted progress was slow, he welcomed the commitment to deal with the problems.
Patrick O’Donovan earlier welcomed a decision by Minister of State Paudie Coffey to review the planning regulations in respect of one-off rural houses. He said that this review was very welcome because while the intent of the regulations was to avoid poorly built houses appearing in areas, it has had the effect of pushing up the cost of building a house which he said needed to be addressed. The Limerick TD said he will continue to use Dáil time to highlight the need for a fair and balanced approach to rural planning for people across the country.