Madam, - Your Managing Editor Peter Murtagh took a full page of The Irish Times last Saturday to make an argument about a planning case in Greystones to which he is opposed. I will leave it with your readers to judge the ethics of that decision.
Mr Murtagh criticises me for staying silent on the issue. However, planning law specifically prohibits the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government of the day from becoming involved in an individual planning application.
This stipulation was put into law following years of planning controversy. The object of the change in legislation, which was widely accepted at the time, was to prevent any suggestion of interference in the planning system by a serving Minister.
The whole evolution of Irish planning law since the middle 1960s has been to create a situation in which the Minister has successively been removed from detailed planning decisions. Up to the time of the reforms in the late 1970s appeals on planning cases were handled by Ministers. At that time, suggestions of political interference were rife. Because of the necessity to re-establish public confidence in the planning system, the Planning Acts established An Bord Pleanála as an entirely independent statutory agency charged with the task of making planning decisions and taking the Minister out of the planning appeal process. This was reinforced in the 2000 Planning and Development Act.
I should point out that my Department does have a limited role in commenting on the archaeological, architectural or nature impacts of proposed developments, and a submission in relation to the proposed development in Greystones in this regard has been sent to An Bord Pleanála.
Against this background it would be grossly improper for me as Minister to breach planning law by getting involved in the Greystones harbour issue. I am sure your paper would be the first to take me to task if I broke that rule. - Yours, etc,
DICK ROCHE TD, Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dublin 1.
Madam, - Cllr George Jones's letter of February 15th, attacking Peter Murtagh's article, is nothing short of nit-picking. Nowhere does Cllr Jones mention the core issue: that the construction in the middle of one of Ireland's smallest and most beautiful harbours of a five-storey block of 375 apartments with 1,000 car park spaces is too high a price to pay for the harbour's restoration.
Perhaps Cllr Jones would serve his electorate better if he thought a bit more carefully before supporting such a hare-brained scheme. There are other ways to restore the harbour. - Yours, etc,
TONY SULLIVAN, Delgany, Co Wicklow.