This article is from page 24 of the 2013-10-01 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 24 JPG
IRELAND has developed a system of planning which is totally at odds with the modern standard of planning across western Europe. That is the opinion of Brendan McGrath, consultant planner with Clare County Council, who believes the Irish planning works to mismanage the landscape of the country.
His his book ‘Landscape and Society in Contemporary Ireland’, Mr McGrath argues that an Irish preoccupation on property rights has led to a broken planning system. “There is a good bit of effort in the book to set out how exceptional the cultural landscape and heritage of Ireland is, and the limited advantage that we have taken of this compared to other European countries. I would hope that this is one message [that people will take] from the book. Something has gone wrong,” he said.
“Planning is a very difficult area of Irish life. Ireland has a wonderful landscape heritage but our interaction with that heritage is problematic. All along the balance [in the Irish planning system] is about protecting the rights of private property and the common good and that balance has always been hard to achieve. The system has protected private interests fairly well but the system has fallen far short when it comes to protecting the common good.”
According to Mr McGrath, the problem does not lie in a lack of vision for the planning system but more a lack of will to enforce planning decision. “There has never been any shortage of plans and visions. As a country we are good at producing plans but there is an enormous gap between the plans and what actually happens. That is a really disappointing aspect of planning in Ireland. We have lots of plans about containing urban growth and creating these attractive little cities. But we have ended up with a lots of urban sprawl and we don’t have the national parks they have in other European countries,” he says. “I know where things break down [in the planning system] but it very hard to come up with explanation [on how to fix the problem]. We do lack effective government institutions. We can make plans and policies but we don’t seem to have the capacity to carry through on these.”