Sir, – I agree with Stephen Collins that the incoming government must address the shortfall in infrastructure development and that the planning system is lengthy and complex (“Ireland needs to treat infrastructure crisis with same urgency as past jobs crisis”, Opinion & Analysis, November 29th).
The new planning system, guillotined by the Government in its dying days, is even lengthier and more complex. Sadly, he falls for the narrative that it is somehow the citizen who is responsible for this shortfall in infrastructure. When he writes that “projects are being delayed or even blocked by objections”, he repeats the unfounded view that objections can do those things.
At the local authority stage, objections have no impact whatsoever on the eight weeks required for a decision. If the decision is appealed, it adds time, supposedly 16 weeks, but there are as many first-party appeals as there are third-party ones.
The lack of urgency in deciding appeals lies with the resources allocated to An Bord Pleanála.
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When he goes on to state that “at the core of the problem is a planning system that . . . allows individuals to frustrate essential development at the merest whim”, he incorrectly validates that fiction. Not only is that statement inaccurate, it also demands that citizens have no voice in forming their future and it is deeply anti-democratic.
The facts of the lack of infrastructural development are that the infrastructure that we need as a society is not properly planned; through lack of participation, it does not get the support of the communities impacted by it; and, very often, its delivery is left to those who stand to benefit most from it, whose interests are for their shareholders, not the common good.
For us to deliver needed infrastructure, we must first have a common vision that is supported by the communities. We must then have agreed plans that are not altered at the whim of the developer.
We must have the financial support to construct it.
Finally, we must not blame the easy target of the citizen for the lack of the vision, agreement and finance. – Yours, etc,
ROBIN MANDAL,
Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.