Mattie McGrath Urges Dismantling of Custom House to Reform Planning

I welcome this legislation, and I welcome you in the position. And I saw how steadfast you stood against the big industry, big business, when the time was gambling in for me. I forwarded you on that bill, but you had the resolve to stick with it. So I know, and thank you for meeting and engaging with us as well, and the briefings. Minister, well, I think you have a big task here, a monumental task. And I've said this to you privately, and I'll say it again. Unless the custom house is dismantled. So it's levelled in the war of independence. I don't mean to hurt anybody, but it has to be dismantled. And get out the rot, the cinder. Some good people in there, don't get me wrong. Many good people, but there's a rot and malaise in there, and it has to be tackled. Because otherwise we're going nowhere. We've had 7,000 or 8,000 ministers here in the last 18 years as I came in, and they've all failed miserably. Because you have an intangible, you have a situation where they feel they're all powerful, and they know it all. And they won't deal with counter-councilers or anybody else. Please ask you to do that, because if you don't, you're going to fail. I'm asking you also to, I said to you privately, Mr. Custon, the planning regulator, send him out to Donald Trump or somewhere, or send him out to whatever, Gaza, he might help someone out there. He created a job for himself. By the way, he came from the customs house all his life, or a lot of his career. He created this position for himself, and the fools in government gave it to him. And gave him the power to disown land all over the country. He undermined every councillor in the country, every councillor that worked hard on the plans, in the development plans, he undermined them all by disowning the land. There you are now trying to rezone some of that land again. He went off, he created a job for himself, and went off on a fantasy tour, power-hungry, and power-greedy, and no accountable to nobody. He has to be stood down. He's not necessary. Give the power to the county councils, give the, as they should have it, and give it to Bort Panola. Here we go again, Bort Panola. There was a lot of corruption in there, we know that. And by changing the name, we had an experience here of changing Irish water, we didn't even get clean water out of it. Not a mind to see any schemes done. Changing the name, Veneer, and I love Massamangheliga, I go knee, I love the Irish name, but changing it to, on commission, Panola, isn't going to cut the mustard. Isn't going to get out the rock, where the inspectors go down to see one-off houses, or some other small developments, and give a favourable report for the Council of Granted Planning, and the board, or whoever inside the board, unaccountable, unelected people, just throw it in the bin. That is shameful. And no one should get that power. We had visionaries here, like TK Whittier, and Sean Lamass here, in the past, and others, and they brought us a long way. We built the houses in the 40s, the 50s, the 60s, the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s. And then things went wrong, with big developers, crazy, and that custom house down there, and Ministers unable to tackle it. Ministers are afraid of it, and pushed off and fobbed off by it. So, I'm depending on you to do this. I am. There's many other issues in the Minister. The Council, where they have the powers, they don't use them. We have a section 160, a power that local authorities have. Whittier and Drugs, last count Kohler, with a situation in Tlantmel, in Dragonsgrave, where all the decent people, 200 of them met in a hall, last Friday night week, worried that a haunting cycle was being created under their noses, right beside them. And six of us then, six Cranmel Broad District members, and the Mayor, and two Rochtes members, Deputy Murphy and myself, met with the Senior Planner, Mr Dave Carnell, who was the Fire Officer, who didn't do his job when he was Fire Officer. He didn't visit Dundrum House Hotel. We asked him for 12 months to visit, he never went near the place. So now he's the planner, and he refused pint blank for the Council to initiate a 160, to stop this in his tracks. He has that power, he wouldn't use it. He was talking about courts, and that he might lose in the courts. They lost in the courts last week. Thankfully, the good people have done Dundrum, and the Heritage Group took a judicial review, and the Council had to admit halfway through it, give in, put their hands up, we made a mistake in granting a section five, to allow a greedy developer to get fatter and more money in his pocket, not on humanitarian grounds. So, the Council have the powers, and they can use them when they want to. But changing the name of Board Penala, and without tackling the malaise, and the rot, and the deep rot, in the custom house, it's wasteful, it might be a pipe dream, it's not going to happen. Count the number of housing ministers we've had here, and see all the unfortunate people that are homeless, and still on waiting lists, and languishing there, and no hope. And see if small builders have been denied, the right to build the houses, and let them off. But above all, once off, the weddings should be allowed to be carried on, and don't be allowing people in offices in Dublin, throw out good planning commissions, and kill young couples' dreams in rural Ireland. Good morning, guys.