Following recent reports in the national media that the Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, used Ministerial power to intervene in the County Laois Development Plan, Green Party councillor Deirdre de Burca has called on Roche to intervene in bad planning decisions in his own County Wicklow.

According to de Burca, the Minister recently exercised his power to ‘vary’ a local authority development plan and Laois County Council was ordered to overturn dozens of rezonings. “I welcome this action by the Minister which will go some way towards tackling the free-for-all approach to planning that applies in so many counties and that has allowed developments to spurt up in inappropriate places where there are hopelessly inadequate road, water, school and shopping services” says de Burca. “However, the Minister’s action raises a number of very serious questions which must be asked”.

“Firstly, why has the Minister waited until now to exercise this emergency ministerial power, given to him under Section 31 of the Planning and Development Act 2000” asks de Burca. “Is it something to do with the fact that the majority of Laois councillors who voted through this plan were Fine Gael councillors, and not of his own political party? Why did Minister Roche not intervene in the debacle of the 2004 Draft Wicklow County Development Plan when seventeen disastrous last- minute rezonings were agreed by councillors, and only reversed when I kicked up murder in the local and national media?”

The Green Party councillor says she is tired of listening to Minister Roche make excuses for why he cannot intervene in bad planning decisions in his own county, through claiming that because he is the Minister for the Environment it would not be appropriate for him to do so. “I have heard him use this excuse in relation to the inappropriate high density town centre development on the flood plain of the Dargle River in Bray, even though building on flood plains is against stated Government policy” says de Burca. “I have also heard him use this excuse in relation to the massive Greystones Harbour project which is a very clear case of serious over-development. The Minister has been astonishingly silent on both planning decisions”.

De Burca has challenged Minister Roche to make a public statement about his attitude to both the Bray and Greystones planning decisions. “The Minister owes an explanation to the constituents in his own county as to why the needs of the people of County Laois are obviously more important to him than those of the people of County Wicklow” she says. “If he can intervene in Laois to stop inappropriate development using his ministerial powers, why on earth can he not do the same in County Wicklow”?