Now that the distracting row over Dáil speaking time has died down the Government needs to get a grip and show that it is capable of dealing with the really big challenges that have taken the gloss off the country’s stellar economic performance over the past decade.
The Taoiseach and his Ministers need to demonstrate a level of urgency which has not been in evidence to date about the scale of the challenges facing them. With the Trump presidency posing a massive threat to the economic model that underpins Irish prosperity, there is no time to waste on silly rows over Dáil procedure. The most obvious problem is the continuing housing crisis, but the inability to make significant progress in dealing with other big infrastructural challenges like water and energy are probably an even bigger threat to the country’s future prosperity.
The core of the problem is an utterly dysfunctional planning system which allows individual objectors to stand in the way of the common good. All the fine words and aspirations in the programme for government will come to naught unless there is some radical new thinking about how to reform it.
During the election campaign Tánaiste Simon Harris rightly identified infrastructure as requiring a whole new approach. His proposed solution was to set up a new government department dedicated to dealing with it. That plan was shot down by a variety of experts who argued that setting up a new department would be a long and complex process that would inevitably get bogged down in turf wars. That argument clearly won the day in the negotiations on the programme for government, but the fact remains that unless there is some radical new thinking about how to meet the country’s infrastructural needs, the new government will run into exactly the same problems as the last one.
Legal culture that underpins frivolous objections has to be reined in or the country will stagnate
Scenes of chaos and bullying in Dáil will have done nothing for the reputation of politicians
Sinn Féin is mistaken if it thinks Conor Murphy in the Seanad will inch us closer to a united Ireland
Martin and Harris must now jettison the frothy promises and focus on the essentials
Instead of a new department the infrastructure buck has been passed to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform. However, this department’s reputation is for saying a big “no” to anything that might cost the exchequer money. Taking on the task of delivering the massive infrastructural development the country requires is a very different type of challenge requiring a level of imagination that may be beyond the department.
The bottom line is that unless the Taoiseach’s office gets directly involved in devising and overseeing the plan it will not work. A template of how to deal with a pressing national issue was devised by Enda Kenny and Eamon Gilmore when they took office in 2011 in the midst of the financial crisis. They set up the Emergency Management Council as the driver of government policy. The Taoiseach, Tánaiste, and the Ministers for Finance and Public Expenditure formed this core group which directed action on the big issues. The biggest problem of the day was unemployment, so they devised an action plan for jobs which required all relevant departments to report progress to the Taoiseach on a monthly basis.
The outcome was that unemployment, which had been the country’s biggest problem for generations, was reduced from 15 per cent to 4 per cent and is no longer an issue. A similar level of urgency is required to deal with the big issues facing the country today.
The much vaunted Planning Act, which was passed in the dying days of the last government, doesn’t go anywhere near far enough in tackling the underlying problems that have bedevilled the planning system. Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil Ministers have privately blamed the Greens for neutering key sections of the draft Bill which would have reduced the ability of objectors to delay projects, including ones for renewable energy, for years on end.
Part of the problem is the willingness of the courts to allow judicial reviews and uphold planning objections on the most trivial of grounds. Unless the law is strengthened and clarified so that judges have clear guidelines about how to act, the problem will get worse rather than better.
Irish Times Berlin correspondent Derek Scally recently wrote about the transformation of Warsaw over the past 20 years, and asked why the same could not happen in Dublin. At least part of the answer lies in our planning system and the tolerance of the courts for judicial reviews.
The legal culture that underpins the tolerance for frivolous objections has to be reined in and there are examples of how it can be done. Look at the way our notorious compensation culture was eventually reformed when the government finally acted to impose a set of guidelines that restricted the ability of judges to give ludicrous amounts of damages for minor injuries.
Streamlining the planning process will not be easy. Far too many people have a hypocritical attitude to the current system, demanding more affordable housing on the one hand while objecting to every housing development in the areas where they live.
It will take political courage to face down the inevitable objections to change, but unless they do it, and find a way to build the infrastructure the country so badly needs, the Government will lose the confidence of the public long before the next election.
