strategic infrastructure bill

[david]

Not sure whether this shouldn't be in the the justice section; anyway, quoted from indymedia:

Implications for democracy and rights
We are running a seminar on the “Strategic Infrastructure Bill”, its effect on our democratic rights and how best to coordinate a strong response.
Many feel it is a further erosion of our rights. To explore this further we cordially invite you to the seminar.
The Strategic Infrastructure Bill
A citizen’s alliance to understand the Bill’s implications
and co-ordinate a national public response

Date: Sunday March 12th
Time: 2.45pm – 5.45pm
Venue: Taylor’s Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8

Why we are issuing this invitation
We invite you to a working meeting to explore how to respond meaningfully to the Strategic Infrastructure Bill, which proposes to radically reform the current planning system. It will be brought before the Dáil shortly, and the Minister hopes to enact it in law by the summer.

The Bill is intended to fast-track decision-making on projects that are considered to be of ‘strategic’ importance and if it is passed, it will limit public participation in the planning process for the most controversial projects.

We believe there is a need for real concern about its consequences. There are many groups currently challenging projects considered to be ‘strategic’. These groups are already significantly disadvantaged by the current system. If passed, the Bill will restrict public engagement even further.

Format and Purpose
This meeting will go beyond information and education. If people believe this is important, it is intended to co-ordinate a move to action on this Bill.

We have invited a number of experts (legal, planning, EU law, etc) to give their opinion on the Bill from their perspective, and we will share these opinions in brief. Then time will be spent by the participants discussing its implications, considering if a national citizen’s response is needed, and if so what that might be and how we might co-ordinate it.

Stronger Together
Throughout Ireland, people are discovering how difficult it is to challenge planning decisions. These decisions are often discovered relatively late in the day. And those who try to challenge or modify them often find themselves without the know-how, information, or experience that could make their efforts more fruitful. There is an important gap in citizen’s capacity that needs to be filled if we are to be more effective.

A number of us, representing different groups throughout Ireland, have been engaged in an exploratory conversation, considering how we might co-ordinate a more powerful and effective citizen’s voice in relation to these matters. We intend to bring our proposals to others, when these are more fully formed.

However, the timing of this Bill is an opportunity to widen the conversation to include groups from all over Ireland who recognise, as we do, the potential to become stronger together.

This Bill joins us together in common cause. If passed, it will render each one of our challenges meaningless. However, if we come together to understand it, respond to it, and shape it, we have the possibility to become more strategic in our efforts to influence development in our country. Please join us on Sunday March 12th. And please pass this invitation to other groups you are aware of who will benefit from this alliance and forward their email to us so we can begin a register of groups engaged in trying to shape the decisions that affect them.

Further Information
Martin Dier, 086 3375837, taraheritage@iolfree.ie, Tara Heritage Preservation Group THPG,
Teresa Mc Donnell, 085 7225659, info@residentssayno.com , Rolestown St Margaret's Action Group RSMAG,
Joan Mason, 087 9597662 , siwear@eircom.net , Cork Harbour Alliance for a Safe Environment , CHASE,

· Contact details for the meeting: Martin Dier 086 3375837 Claire Oakes 046 9028352
· Please confirm your attendance to taraheritage@iolfree.ie
· Please read an article dated 17/02/06 by Frank McDonald, The Irish Times

Link to bill

Has anybody read the bill yet? Anybody any thoughts about it?

[northdub]

Basically it does away with local democracy when it comes to what the Government consider to be strategic infrastructure. In effect they can make amendments year after year to add to the list of 'strategic' developments. Its a bit like what is happening with the proposed new 'Mountjoy' out in north Dublin. The minister enacted legislation which gave the effect of removing prisons from the planning process so the local authority has absolutely no say in the development. The government don't even have to conduct an environmental assessment - an this will the biggest prison in Europe in the middle of a farm! The strategic infrastructure bill is more of the same. This idea thats put about that loads of roads are delayed because of protests etc is a myth. The vast majority of roads are built with no problems. The bill will ensure that nobody can object to incinerators - everything will be fastracked to a special section of an Bord Pleanala - who never turn down anything that they are directed by a minister to pass.

[zakalwe]

kinda like eminent domain in the us (except in the US it can be used to knock down residential units to make way for shopping centres).

if means that national interest supercedes local nimby-ism then maybe its not a bad thing.

[david]

kinda like eminent domain in the us (except in the US it can be used to knock down residential units to make way for shopping centres).

if means that national interest supercedes local nimby-ism then maybe its not a bad thing.

...except when it happens to be your own backyard.

Whatever happened to Maastricht?

[david]

I've tried to wade through the document but the legalese put me to sleep.

It seems to me that Dick Roche said to his lackeys, "I want to get (incinerators/nuclear/whatever) through the planning process as easily and quickly as possible, without getting the public involved. Write me some legislation that allows that."

If the document had landed on his desk out of the blue, I very much doubt that he'd fathom it out. Nonetheless, it represents further erosion of rights.

There is a public meeting organised on Sunday March 12th at 2.45pm – 5.45pm in Taylor’s Hall, Back Lane, Dublin 8 to try help understand the bill's implications and how to respond.

Contact details for the meeting: Martin Dier 086 3375837 or Claire Oakes 046 9028352

Please confirm your attendance to taraheritage@iolfree.ie

I don't think this is breaking copyright: I've copied it from a press release.

Fast-track planning process an erosion of democracy

Dick Roche's proposed reforms of the planning system would seriously erode democratic participation in vital decisions that affect us all, writes Frank McDonald, Environment Editor

The measures announced yesterday by Environment Minister Dick Roche are intended to circumscribe public participation in the planning process for the biggest, and frequently most controversial, projects - motorways, incinerators, landfills, oil pipelines, power stations, electricity pylons and rail projects.

It is clear that the "fast-track" planning regime now being proposed, with a special division of An Bord Pleanála serving as a one-stop shop, will apply to anything that the Government, or even a city or county manager, deems to be of "strategic importance" - even profit-orientated schemes emanating from the private sector.

Labour Party environment spokesman Éamon Gilmore rightly suggested that the move had been designed to "cut the public out of the planning process for major infrastructure projects".

None of these projects would have to go through the planning process at local level; they would be referred directly to the appeals board.

Local authorities, including councillors, would have a right to be consulted and have their views "taken into account" - but that's all.

In addition, An Bord Pleanála would have the power to require, say, the promoters of a waste incinerator to provide direct benefits to local communities affected by major infrastructure projects.

The only other comfort given to objectors is that the Strategic Infrastructure Bill 2006 extends the rules on access to judicial reviews for environmental NGOs (non-governmental organisations), to ensure that Ireland is in compliance with its international obligations under the Aarhus Convention on Public Participation.

However, it should be noted that the 2000 Planning Act narrowed the scope for judicial review of An Bord Pleanála's decisions to points of law; in other words, the High Court could not be asked to deal with the substance of any planning case. This restrictive measure inevitably led to a significant reduction in the number of legal challenges.

Since the Act came into force, 75 applications for judicial review have been made to the High Court, representing a small fraction of the board's decisions. Of these, 24 have been adjudicated so far, with leave refused in 15 cases, six other cases decided against the board (of which five were uncontested) and three in its favour.

The Bill has been welcomed as a major step forward by the Chambers of Commerce of Ireland, which had lobbied for the changes along with Ibec, the business and employers' organisation. But Ibec's director of enterprise, Brendan Butler, said they would have to be accompanied by measures to "tackle" legal challenges to planning decisions.

Butler has repeatedly blamed the row over Carrickmines Castle and the court actions it prompted for the enormous cost of completing the final leg of the M50, which worked out at €596 million, or €42.5 million per kilometre.

This is simply untrue. In fact, only €20 million of the total bill has been officially attributed to the Carrickmines controversy.

The main reason why the motorway cost so much was that the land required for it in south Co Dublin had to be bought at staggering prices during the height of the "Celtic Tiger" boom.

And even though plaintiff Dominic Dunne lost his case, he was awarded costs because the issues he raised were "truly of general public importance".

It is ironic to note that yesterday's publication of the Strategic Infrastructure Bill coincided with the deferral - for the fourth time in 10 months - by the Supreme Court of its judgment in Dunne's action challenging the constitutionality of the 2004 National Monuments (Amendment) Act, on which the M3/Tara case also hinges.

Clearly, the Government wants to limit public scrutiny as much as possible.

Since it was re-elected in 2002, it has filleted the Freedom of Information Act, abolished Dúchas (the State Heritage Service) when it was seen to be getting in the way of "progress", and amended the National Monuments Act to give the Minister total discretion.

Dick Roche has cited the 28-day duration of the M3 motorway inquiry as evidence that this controversial project was thoroughly assessed before An Bord Pleanála approved it in August 2003. But most of it was taken up by consideration of the motorway's impact on individual landholdings, rather than the archaeological landscape around Tara.

Roche has also been fulsome in his praise for the "greatly improved performance" of the appeals board. After all, it is a fact that the board has approved every major road scheme that came before it since January 2003 - 27 in all - even, at least in one case, where the planning inspector who dealt with it recommended a refusal?

All of the inquiries into major road projects are conducted not by planners but by road engineers, usually retired from the public service and retained by the board on a consultancy basis.

According to An Taisce, they tend to treat it as "an administrative process to be gone through", rather than a serious examination of particular projects.

There is no reason to believe that this will change when An Bord Pleanála establishes a Strategic Infrastructure Division to deal with major projects, as the Government now envisages.

Deadlines for making decisions to ensure "speedy delivery" of projects are unlikely to provide time for the "robust analysis" mentioned by the Minister.

The appeals board also gave its approval to the controversial Indaver hazardous waste incinerator planned for Ringaskiddy, in Cork harbour, despite being given 14 reasons to say no by Philip Jones, the senior planning inspector who presided at a lengthy public inquiry into the project. Here again, the board put Government policy first.

So we are left with the bizarre situation of a two-tier planning process - one designed very specifically to "fast-track" motorways and other major schemes that would affect us all, with the minimum amount of input from the public, and the other for everything else, from domestic extensions to apartment blocks, office buildings and shopping centres.

As Margaret Thatcher once observed: "It's a funny old world."

© The Irish Times 17/02/2006

[michael1965]

I'm in two minds about it. One one hand, I share the general annoyance with unrepresentative cliques, who can hold up the greater good, with their endless litigation, and rejection of democratic will.

The time to make one's voice heard is at the planning stage. I was glad that the court case against the M3 was thrown out.

But I have to say that (as usual) this is a baby and bath-water solution to the problem. It is a dilution of democracy, and without doubt reduces the public scrutiny that these most important developments will get. Currently with planning appeals, Bord Pleanala gets the benefit of all the work done by the local authorities in their initial appraisal. With this, they will have to start from scratch. The reasoning seems to be that most significant projects end up in Bord Pleanala anyway, and this is just a way of fast-tracking the process, but it ignores all of the important work done by the local authorities in the initial consideration of the application, not to mention the input that the general public are allowed to make.

The right answer to the problem of serial-objectors and litigators, is in my opinion, to force them to pay all costs when they lose their legal cases (just like normal civil law). Also, to increase the resources available to Bord Pleanala so they can process appeals more quickly. It is surely more important that critical infrastructure gets more scrutiny and not less.

Otherwise, we are in for more developments like the North dublin prison, where they plonk it in any old place where someone is prepared to flog them enough land, and to hell with proper planning and consultation.