The section is not agreed because it extends the ban on producing certificates to certificates that will be issued before this Bill comes into operation. It is retrospective in effect insofar as it catches them. That is why I am not agreeing it, but I am not going to ask for another vote.

I support Senator Currie’s amendment. This is simply about notifying the affected community – it can be a small community – where it is proposed to put a line of poles along the side of a road. I have experienced this in County Roscommon. Very reasonably, the broadband contractors notified local householders, including me, about their proposal to erect a third line of poles along our road. People should be entitled, as of right, to some degree of notice in respect of what is happening in their communities. In my ca…

I am very glad that we have got to this point of the debate on this legislation. It is time to reflect for a little bit on what is involved in this Bill. This Bill's origins, as I see it, are a project spearheaded in a big way by my successor as Attorney General, Mr. Paul Gallagher, to restate and consolidate the planning law of the country. His office, in fact, took over in large measure the construction and drafting of this Bill and the form that it takes today. As I said yesterday, I am strongly of the view that…

The first amendment proposed by Senator Boyhan and me reflects his reasonable nature. I would be more radical than that. I do not believe in ten-year plans. I do not believe in ten-year plans that can be extended to 12 years. In particular, I do not believe in plans of this kind which are effectively pre-cooked by the Office of the Planning Regulator and, in effect, preordained in large measure as to their substance because of the obligation to consult with that office and then, in the end, subject to actual correc…

Can I reply to that?

I have been asked whether I read section 58. I read it, but I read on to what happens when a variation is proposed. First, it has to be sent to the OPR for examination. If the OPR decides it contravenes, in the OPR’s so-called independent view, any of the national planning criteria we spoke about earlier the Bill provides that a draft direction can be cooked up by the OPR to tell the local authority not to make the amendment. That is the end of it unless a Minister comes to this House and says he disagrees with the…

-----the decision of the OPR.

When does it happen is the question I have to ask. It is very easy to mutter about this and say it can happen, but it does not happen. The same machine that is in the Department of housing and local government is the parent of the daughter institution, the OPR. They select each other for all these positions as managers, or now chief executives, of county councils. There is a prefecture installed in Ireland that obeys a code of its own. That is the reality of the situation. Senator Fitzpatrick says a local authority…

They have some powers but they do not have an opposite planning regulation which vetoes everybody's activities.

Then they get a veto.

I welcome the Minister of State and thank him for attending. I will make a number of preliminary observations. We have decided the Order of Business and I do not want to reopen that discussion. It is slightly old-fashioned to say the Bill is the size of an old telephone directory-----

-----but there were such things inside the hall doors of most houses at one time and this could certainly keep the hall door open in a fairly substantial wind. Abridging the time for consideration of this legislation on Committee Stage is not a good idea. Even with the accelerated procedures for clearing the decks in respect of amendments for Report Stage, which are a concession because it was originally planned to steamroll this whole Bill through before the summer vacation, the Bill is not receiving adequate cons…

It is all very well to do that. I am talking about the Office of the Planning Regulator.

Sorry, it is section 1, if the Senator would read the-----

The Senator would not merely vote to guillotine the Committee Stage but then he started objecting to people who want to talk about what we are actually doing with this legislation.

I know that and as the Senator is aware, I am talking about the amendment in section 1. I want to make the point that having done all of these things, we are now putting and cementing in place this rigid regime of control over local authority members. It is entirely wrong. The illusion of local democracy is entirely exposed by the Office of the Planning Regulator. That Department, in choosing to create this mechanism whereby it effectively can challenge its own Minister to either put up or shut up by putting a moti…

I do not know how this arises on the section as it now is, given that the amendment has been defeated, but in response to Senator Burke, it seems that to say there is no constraint on what councillors can or cannot propose by way of an amendment to a draft plan or insert into a plan is at variance with the experience of many councillors. Their experience is that the executive of a council advises them that any particular amendment would be in breach of the Government's guidelines, or whatever it may be. If they con…

Section 7(e) states that a material change of use includes "in respect of premises used for retail purposes, a change in use from a prescribed retail purpose to another prescribed retail purpose". Why does a change of use have to be from one prescribed use to another? For instance, if we do not want there to be an absolute right to run a fish and chip shop, why does it matter what kind of retail use it had in the first place? It could have been a shoe shop or a car rental agency. It seems this is a needless provisi…

I am just saying whatever kind of thing-----

Through the Chair, I am suggesting that there probably are categories of things the Minister of the day will want to have a say on in this regard. If somebody wants to use a premises for a particular use, the Minister will make regulations stating that such an individual must get planning permission. I do not see how it matters what the premises were beforehand, however. That is the point I am making.