An Alliance of some 75 environmental and community groups has complained to the European Commission that the Government's new planning Bill severely restricts the rights of citizens to object to developments.
The group, led by Friends of the Irish Environment, also claimed that the proposed introduction of mandatory fees of about £20 for planning submissions to local authorities is contrary to EU law.
A copy of a letter sent to Environment Commissioner Ms Margot Wallstrom was handed in to the Dail yesterday after a protest meeting in Dublin. The campaign received support from Fine Gael, Labour, the Green Party and Independent Socialist TD Mr Joe Higgins.
The campaign is also backed by An Taisce. The Irish Planning Institute said the fees would prevent public participation in the local planning process - though it was not party to the protest.
The IPI president, Mr Philip Jones, told The Irish Times that if local councillors, who regularly made representations, were excluded from paying fees, it was likely that huge numbers of public submissions would be channelled through them, which could make the system unworkable.
The alliance welcomed many aspects of the Bill, as did the IPI, but is opposed to:-
A fee to comment on a planning application;
A requirement to have previously commented on an application locally, and paid the fee, in order to appeal to An Bord Pleanala;
The stipulation that a person have a "substantial" interest in order to request a judicial review of a planning decision.
"It is impossible for us and the community groups we represent not to feel the three provisions are fatally mistaken and are infringements of the Environmental Impact Assessment Directive," said Mr David Healy of FIE.
Mr Michael Smith, chairman of An Taisce, said that while much of the Bill was progressive, he would not apologise for wishing to assert the democratic rights of citizens, particularly of amenity and community groups.
The proposals had emerged from the current fad for attributing development delays to objections and appeals filed by the public, according to the Fine Gael environment spokesman, Mr Alan Dukes.
The Bill was presented as being radical and reforming, said Labour environment spokesman Mr Eamon Gilmore, but it was "fundamentally about fast-tracking development at the expense, very often, of the rights of citizens and communities."
The public had yet to realise how regressive the Bill was, said Green TD Mr John Gormley, as people with worthy grounds to object would be excluded from the planning process. His party colleague, Ms Patricia McKenna MEP, said the proposal was an attempt to stop the efforts of environmental groups which had managed to "put the brakes on" a number of large developments.
While the fee was as yet unspecified, it would be set at such a level as not to deter people from objecting or making observations, a Department of the Environment spokesman said. In return, people were being given statutory rights, which meant planning authorities had to give full consideration to their views, where previously there was no obligation to do so.
