Public transport and rural Ireland
3rd January 2023
Sir, – Michael Harrington’s letter (January 2nd) equating Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan’s stance of being pro-public transport with being “anti-car” and, ipso facto, “anti-rural” epitomises the inevitable consequences of successive decades of rural housing policy failure.
Many of us have long pointed to our proclivity for dispersed “one-off” settlement patterns as fundamentally at odds with decarbonisation, particularly when the vast bulk of this trend is simply counter-urban commuter sprawl. Rather than following a European model of nucleating population in towns and villages to the best possible extent, we’ve now locked in what is amongst the most private car dependent and public transport-inimical societies anywhere in the world.
The social and political antagonisms created by this rod for our own back will unfortunately continue to stymie the urgency of our best-laid climate plans. In these circumstances it is perhaps inescapable that people will prefer to blame the messenger rather than to the self-inflicted root cause of the problem, which was both widely predicted and predictable. Sadly, the news last week from the Office of the Planning Regulator that, in 2021, “one-off” houses accounted for 45 per cent of all houses permitted in the State means that we clearly still have not got the memo. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2023/01/03/public-transport-and-rural-ireland/
Planning and housing supply
30th September 2022
Sir, – Architect Hugh Wallace’s sentimentality for a time before the Irish planning system existed in the early 20th century and pointing the finger at disjointed, short-term localism as the origin of our housing supply problems overlooks some basic facts (“Our planning system is broken – this is how we fix it”, Property, September 29th).
First, the Local Government (Planning & Development) Act 1963 was superseded over two decades ago by the more simply titled Planning & Development Act 2000. By the mid-2000s, the planning system was processing over 85,000 planning applications per year and Ireland was building approximately 90,000 houses per year.
Second, the official planning statistics show that, nationally, 88.5 per cent of planning applications were granted permission by local planning authorities in 2021, with 62.4 per cent of decisions made within the statutory eight-week time frame. Overall, of the 31,008 applications made in 2020, just 2,753 (8.9 per cent) were appealed to An Bord Pleanála. A total of 73 per cent of those appeals are disposed of within the statutory objective period of 18 weeks.
Finally, it is of course true that Ireland did successfully deliver more housing and other infrastructure in the past. However, the key difference between then and now, and to which Mr Wallace alludes, is that it was the State that was doing the delivery. Today it is the market, and the planning system can only process what the market applies for and we are entirely dependent on it for delivery. It is estimated that, nationwide, there are extant planning permissions for up to 80,000 housing units where construction has not commenced, so much so that the Government has recently announced the Project Tosaigh scheme to purchase them back through the Land Development Agency.
But let’s not let the facts get in the way of the usual tired criticisms of the planning system. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/09/30/planning-and-housing-supply/
Taking blame for climate change
Sir, – Seán Moncrieff (Irish Times Magazine, July 11th) says we need to become “stonily clear-eyed about who the real enemies are” in respect of climate change: Corporations! China! India! Big Oil Companies!
One wonders who buys all their stuff? We do! No matter how much we seek to reinterpret the psychological pain of our guilt, the problem is us. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/2022/06/14/taking-blame-for-climate-change/
Planners and ‘objections’
15th January 2022
Sir, – Your Cantillon article (“Planners should be able to ignore some objections to housing schemes”, Business, January 14th) is revealing of some of the apocryphal myths which have taken hold in Irish society on the operation of the Irish planning system.
The idea abounds that “objections” by third parties have some form of divine powers and that the mere making of one is binding on planners and dispositive of their determination of each and every planning application.
Nothing could be further from the truth! In fact, the term “objection” is not known in Irish planning law. Any member of the public is entitled to make an “observation” which can be for, against, or merely to request modifications to a development proposal.
As has always been the case, planners take all observations received into consideration as part of their assessment, alongside other policy considerations, and regularly grant planning permission contrary to “objections” received, and vice versa. In most cases, the making of an observation does not delay the course of a planning application whatsoever, as the timeframes for a determination are set by law. Furthermore, a specific legal provision has long existed to allow planners to dismiss observations that are considered frivolous or vexatious and which do not relate to the proper planning and sustainable development of the area.
Despite the existence of ready-to-go planning permissions for tens of thousands of housing units throughout the country, there continues to be a sustained effort among developer interests to scapegoat the planning system for the lack of supply.
This should be seen for what it is – a crude deregulatory attempt to limit democratic public participation which, given our lamentable history of serious planning failure, must be outrightly rejected. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/planners-and-objections-1.4776695
Climate crisis and political action
4th August 2021
Sir, – The response by Evan Byrne (Letters, July 31st) is what makes me so pessimistic that we will be able to solve our climate predicament. The inference of this market-orientated techno-optimism is that we have time on our hands to gradually “nudge” citizens in the right direction through piecemeal approaches without discommoding their current lifestyles.
We do not. Climate change is a clear and present danger, and we are fast approaching a global climate which is beyond that which has been experienced in the entire history of human civilisation.
The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is clear. Limiting global warming to a “safe” threshold of 1.5 degrees above pre-industrial levels requires “rapid, far-reaching and unprecedented changes in all aspects of society”. We are currently at 1.2 degrees and we have less than a decade to halve our emissions.
Unless citizens are willing to accept that our lifestyles must fundamentally change – and that there will be some pain – we have no chance of achieving a habitable future.
We have seen during the pandemic that the public is, by and large, willing to accept very significant inconveniences for the greater good, so long as the risks are clearly communicated, which is the job of political leadership.
This is not idealism. It’s realism. We’re in an emergency. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/climate-crisis-and-political-action-1.4638066
Tall buildings and Dublin’s future
9th March 2021
Sir, – There is a fundamental flaw in developer Johnny Ronan’s argument regarding building heights in the Dublin Docklands.
The planning scheme for the Docklands Strategic Development Zone was duly adopted by the members of Dublin City Council and, by extension, the citizens of Dublin, following extensive public consultation, environmental assessments and subsequently approved by An Bord Pleanála in 2014 after a two-week oral hearing. Everyone had an opportunity to have their say.
Mr Ronan may not like the planning scheme, but that’s democracy.
I note that he makes no reference whatsoever to the fact that, following the introduction of new national building height guidelines in 2018, Dublin City Council has proposed to amend the planning scheme to allow for a 25-storey building on this site.
These amendments are currently awaiting approval from An Bord Pleanála.
What is really in play here is the integrity of the Irish planning system. It was for this reason that Dublin City Council was previously compelled to take legal action and, on both occasions, it was fully vindicated.
If planning permission were to be granted for Mr Ronan’s proposed development, it would set a dangerous precedent whereby democratically established planning policy could be set aside at the whim of individual developers, and at that every single citizen should be very concerned. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/tall-buildings-and-dublin-s-future-1.4504545
Walking in lockdown
16th February 2021
Sir, – Pat Mullen (Letters, February 13th) succinctly captures how utterly car dependent “rural Ireland” really is, and how negatively it is affected by that same dependency. That is, one cannot even go for a walk near one’s house without running the gauntlet of speeding vehicles. Even to go for a safe walk, you need to drive to it.
Of course, the supreme irony is that one of the main reasons often cited by people choosing to self-build in the countryside; remote from the “luxuries” of infrastructure, such as footpaths, is bucolic quiet and quality of life. Perhaps if there was a right to roam things might be different. But rural residents often cannot even take advantage of the countryside on their doorstep. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/walking-in-lockdown-1.4485570
Cycling and commuting
23rd December 2020
Sir, – As many of the good burghers of Sandymount seem not best pleased with their proposed new cycle lanes, can I suggest that Dublin City Council divert its attention and resources to communities that would actually welcome such infrastructure.
Where I live, in the north city centre, 77 per cent of households don’t have a car, yet our streets are clogged with polluting, noisy and dangerous traffic trundling back and forth to suburbia.
The controversy simply reinforces the misperception that cycling is a discretionary, middle-class, recreational pursuit, whereas we actually need it to get around. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/cycling-and-commuting-1.4444178
Where is local democracy in road plans?
15th August 2020
Sir, – Cllr Maeve O’Connell (Letters, August 13th) bemoans the absence of local democracy in road plans for Dún Laoghaire Rathdown. Funnily enough, I don’t recall that there was ever a democratic debate when road space was progressively handed over to become the near-exclusive and permanent domain of private cars; when pedestrians had to beg to cross the road; and when our roads, and their rules, were reconstituted to effectively discriminate against all non-motorised traffic.
We should have a democratic debate. But that debate should start from an assumption of equality that all road users – pedestrians, cyclists and cars – have an equal right to access road space. – Yours, etc,
GAVIN DALY,
Dublin 1.
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/where-is-local-democracy-in-road-plans-1.4330573
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