Michael McDowell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have been asked whether I read section 58. I read it, but I read on to what happens when a variation is proposed. First, it has to be sent to the OPR for examination. If the OPR decides it contravenes, in the OPR’s so-called independent view, any of the national planning criteria we spoke about earlier the Bill provides that a draft direction can be cooked up by the OPR to tell the local authority not to make the amendment. That is the end of it unless a Minister comes to this House and says he disagrees with the OPR, states the reasons for same and that the OPR’s view is technically incorrect. The Planning Regulator and his office have been put into this position of correcting the homework of every council and every initiative to vary any draft plan, and to veto it unless a Minister comes before this House and the other House and says he wants, for stated reasons, to disagree with-----