The Fine Gael spokesman on the environment, Mr Alan Dukes, last night called for legislative changes to allow county councillors greater involvement in the planning process as a means of restoring local democracy. He said it was essential that elected members of local authorities be given powers to go deeper into the planning process than adopting county development plans and passing material contraventions of the plan if local democracy was to be realised.
He said he accepted there would be difficulty setting the thresholds for the kinds of development which would be subject to being passed by elected members but what was important was that elected members should have a voice in major decisions. He was speaking at a conference at University College Cork entitled "Taking Local Government into the Millennium".