The near-collapse of the local authority planning system can be traced to a failure by successive governments to provide the money necessary to maintain and expand the employment of qualified experts. But the buck stops with the current Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, who has overseen a steady deterioration in the quality of services during the past four years. A shortfall in planning staff is inhibiting development and encouraging rogue builders to flout the planning laws.
A recent report on the system by the Ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy, was scathing. His overall impression was of a system in a state of collapse. Even the most basic services provided by planning departments were deteriorating, he said, with planners not taking phone calls or agreeing to meet objectors. He was particularly critical of Galway County Council, which had adopted a policy of only responding in writing to representations from elected representatives.
A shortage of planning staff, allied with political and economic pressure to complete developments as quickly as possible, has led to the emphasis being placed on processing planning applications within local authorities rather than policing breaches of the law. Such an approach undermines public confidence, encourages developers to flout the law, and gives credence to frequently unfounded allegations of corruption on the part of public officials. This unsatisfactory situation has been exacerbated by a doubling in the number of planning applications during the past ten years.
Resolving such entrenched problems would tax the political skills of any minister. But Mr Dempsey is facing additional difficulties by way of industrial relations problems. The Irish Planning Institute (IPI) has objected to changes in management structures at local authority level which, it maintains, downgrade the status of professional planners. The IPI has said the changes are encouraging its members to leave for the private sector because their career structures and status are being downgraded.
Such matters will require delicate handling. The Minister is said to be considering the representations made by the IPI while still being supportive of the establishment of new management structures. At the same time, a number of steps have been taken to address those planning bottlenecks that have developed. Measures have been put in place that will treble the output of planners from third-level institutions to 75 a year by 2003. And, following a foreign recruitment campaign, 27 qualified planners are now available to local authorities on fixed-term contracts. Finally, a change to the local government planning and development regulations, which increases the exemption limits for domestic extensions from 23 to 40 square feet, is expected to reduce the number of applications by 30 per cent.
All of these measures will help. But they will take time. And, in the meantime, the planning system is likely to continue to totter on the verge of collapse. Other action is necessary. Specifically, the Minister should ensure that a more streamlined enforcement system for the planning process should operate. That will require the Attorney General, Mr Michael McDowell, to devise new regulations under the Planning and Development Act and for Mr Dempsey to order their implementation. Nothing less is required if the damning report by the Ombudsman is to change anything.