IRELAND has an undemocratic form of local administration which allows county councils to "behave as absolute vandals", the Green Party MEP, Ms Nuala Ahern, said during a protest meeting in Delgany, Co Wicklow.
Ms Ahern was among an estimated crowd of over 500 who walked a two mile route from Delgany to Killincarrig on Saturday in protest at Wicklow County Council's decision to grant planning permission for a 300 house development in the locality.
She said she had entered politics because of her frustration at Wicklow County Council's handling of public protest.
It was patently obvious, she said, that the road system in the locality could not support the development of such a large estate, and that planning permission should have been refused on this ground alone. There were two primary schools at either end of the development site, and the land represented the last green belt between Greystones and Delgany.
Instead of listening to the community, the local authority had ridden roughshod over the wishes of the people. "This has to be taken on - it has to stop here," she declared.
Ms Ahern also said she would like to see an overhaul of the local authority structure in the State. "What we have here is a system that was inherited from the British and is aimed more at local administration than local democratic government, as is the case in most modern European democracies.
Mr Patrick Pender, chairman of Delgany Area Residents' Association Action Group (DARAG), produced a copy of "Local Agenda 21" which he said was a document being promoted by the Department of the Environment advocating sustainable development and community based planning. Mr Pender said that instead of this attitude emanating from Wicklow County Council, 500 people who objected to the planning permission for these houses were greeted with a stony silence.
Mr Pender added that he was aware of plans to widen the road through the centre of the village which, he said, would make it the main arterial route from the motorway to Greystones. They would not permit what amounted to the destruction of Delgany: "We will not tolerate the arrival of a lime when people say this was once a beautiful village."
DARAG and its supporters have launched 17 appeals against the housing development with An Bord Pleanala, involving the submissions of 400 people.