Sir, – The 2000 Planning Act was rolled out with day-long public meetings in Dublin, Galway, and Cork after the publication and distribution of its proposed contents. The high table included then-minister for the environment Noel Dempsey and the experts responsible for what was seen as radical legislation. It was this legislation that introduced the €20 submission fee, halving the public participation rate.
The current draft Bill has yet to see its 600-plus pages published. Instead of the fully attended day-long public meetings, “legislative scrutiny” by a Joint Oireachtas Committee is all we are left with. What has been made clear is that the legislation will restrict public participation by various measures, including removing the right of community groups to bring challenges to planning decisions.
Requiring individuals to expose themselves (and their families) to potentially serious social and economic costs without the protection of community or other groups runs contrary to international agreements Ireland has signed, from the Stockholm UN declaration on human rights and the environment in 1972, to Aarhus’s convention on access to justice, information, and public participation, ratified by Ireland in 2012.
Increasing greenhouse gas emissions and continuing loss of biodiversity are a direct result of failures in our planning system to ensure the “common good”. Ironically, highlighting this through valid legal challenges has led to a proposed clampdown on those who are best situated to take these legal challenges. The problem is poor decision-making – not successful appeals.
A response which sets the clock back 20 years for public participation while proposing to intimidate the citizenry from exercising their fundamental human rights will only further accelerate the speed of our journey on the “highway to hell”. – Yours, etc,
TONY LOWES,
Friends of
the Irish Environment,
Eyeries,
Co Cork.
Sir, – Cllr John Kennedy of Fine Gael seems to defend the proposed changes to the planning process, which would significantly curtail the scope of residents’ associations to mitigate the negative impact of what they consider inappropriate development, on the basis that the proposed new Bill contains a “compensatory quid pro quo” by way of a clause that will ensure An Bord Pleanála and local authorities “will only have limited margin to make decisions that materially contravene development plans” (Letters, December 15th).
While one has to wonder if such an “ironclad” assurance is intended then why bother at all with this very contentious aspect of what is being proposed. The real weakness in Cllr Kennedy’s attempt to assuage concerns is his failure to say who gets to decide what is, and what is not, a material contravention of a local development plan. It seems clear that when such a decision is taken, residents’ associations would, under these new proposals, be barred from the judicial review process should they disagree with it. The “ironclad” measure to “deter contravention of development plans” cited by Cllr Kennedy is in fact meaningless. – Yours, etc,
JIM O’SULLIVAN,
Rathedmond,
Sligo.