Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive response to all of those.

In relation to amendment No. 1, I welcome that the Minister of State confirmed here today, which we would not had known before coming in here, that there will be a review of the structures and the governance around the OPR. That is important. That is an acknowledgement that there needs to be one. Certainly, it is a scoping exercise. Clearly, they will see what they find there. I welcome that. I am disappointed that the Minister of State cannot go further but he confirmed that there is a process in play.

In relation to amendment No. 3, the Minister of State suggests that we progress this through the Local Government Act. I was hoping that the Minister of State might indicated some support for it. Clearly, there is another line. It is the Local Government Act, but it is rather strange when we are talking about one of the biggest pieces of legislation on which we are addressing planning that there seems to be no role for a chief planner despite what I have said that we have directors of planning in local authorities who have no qualifications in planning, geography or anything related to it and they are meant to be the lead person in a planning authority. It is a shame. It is a terrible indictment on the system.

I would have liked to have heard the Minister of State say that I raised some valid points. I am sure the Minister of State himself knows about them. One would not have to look too far in the west, where there are issues and problems. Surely we are not allowing people with no qualifications in planning to continue to run planning departments because somehow, in the mix of the chairs or the divvy-out of the portfolios in a local authority, the chief finds he has this spare vacancy and this is the only person left or the person that he thinks is best suited.

That is a story. If I was writing about planning tomorrow in any of the national newspapers, I would be talking about that because the public would be appalled at the idea. We would hardly have a non-surgeon carrying out surgery activities on someone in a hospital. Why would we have someone with no experience, no knowledge and no qualification in planning acting as a director of planning? The Minister of State makes the point it goes to the Local Government Act.Perhaps the Minister of State, as Minister of State with responsibility for local government, might consider taking this up at some future date. I am happy to work with him on this to see if we can bring forward some sort of amendment. It makes absolute sense that we should have a planner, someone with a qualification. Planning is an amazing science and a very technical area of great expertise and competence. Therefore, we should have a planner. We could not have someone with no experience in accounting or finance heading up our finance unit. I wanted to comment on those two points. I thank the Minister of State for his considered response to those particular amendments.