Councillors take strong position in defence of local democracy in new Planning & Development Bill

The Association of Irish Local Government, led by AILG President and Cathaoirleach of Kilkenny County Council Cllr. Pat Fitzpatrick, took a strong position in defence of the role of citizens and local democracy in new planning legislation when they appeared today at a meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Housing, Heritage and Local Government to discuss the Planning and Development Bill 2022.

During AILG’s contributions, Cllr. Pat Fitzpatrick emphasised the concerns of City and County Councillors across the State that the Bill “reinforces a centralised planning structure with the County Development plan locked into rigid National and Regional Planning frameworks, themselves based on assumptions and projects which bear no reality to the conditions in particular localities as identified in their day-to-day role of representing the citizens.”

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The national representative body for City and County Councillors reiterated that Councillors are the citizens’ representatives in the entire planning process and shared concerns about whether the rights of citizens are being adequately protected with proposals to extend the period of validity of a Development plan from six to ten years. President Cllr. Pat Fitzpatrick also asked the Committee whether there would be meaningful consultation and consideration of the views of the people of the locality as part of this five-year interim exercise.

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AILG also took the opportunity to address other areas of concern in the Bill including the centralisation of planning through mandatory Ministerial guidelines, limitation on judicial reviews, and the short legislative time scale that is being given to the Bill to ensure proper scrutiny.

As representatives of the citizen in the entire planning process, “Local democracy is the bedrock of our civic culture; if the Oireachtas diminishes the role of the Councillor in a matter as urgent to local communities as planning policy then the Oireachtas is diminishing Irish democracy as a whole.”