Swoosh! Down came the guillotine, missing Darragh O’Brien’s ear by a Trumpian hair’s breadth and not completely killing off debate on the Planning and Development Bill, as had been widely expected.
After three years of deliberation (not half enough, insist critics) the committee stage of the Government’s showhouse legislation was rushed through at 1pm on Wednesday.
Game over? Not quite.
Most of those three years were taken up by TDs thrashing out the detail of this monumental piece of work with the Seanad allotted just 21 hours to debate it. This was much to the frustration and annoyance of Opposition Senators who have grave reservations about many aspects of the Bill which aims to consolidate and streamline planning process and law.
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Depending on one’s point of view, the Minister for Housing’s landmark creation is either a dangerous folly or an architectural gem.
Heavyweight Opposition resistance has been spearheaded by Independent Senator Michael McDowell in full Law Library mode, constantly up on his feet trying to punch legal holes in the Government’s argument and thoroughly enjoying himself.
Although we sincerely hope that McDowell – along with many other Opposition speakers – had full planning permission for his contributions with more extensions, add-ons and overruns than an entire season of Room to Improve.
As the 3½-hour debate crawled along, Fianna Fáil’s Eugene Murphy told the Senators who were complaining about not having enough time to address the amendment that they weren’t helping matters by making very long speeches.
Just before the 1pm guillotine came down, the Minister put the House on notice that he would be bringing a lot more amendments at Report Stage and there would be “ample time” to consider them. Some of them will address issues raised over the last three days of heated debate.
Government members will be pleased, as they too had expressed reservations about aspects of the Bill while praising Darragh for building what they say is a long-awaited and very much needed overhaul of the planning and development process.
But the others won’t feel particularly relieved by his good news, given that one of their big complaints was that not a single amendment out of the hundreds tabled at Committee Stage was accepted by the Government.
Monument or monstrosity?
It’s a huge piece of legislation. When a printed copy was held up by Fine Gael’s Mary Seery-Kearney, it looked like a very large version of something known in the olden days as the Golden Pages.
Indeed, at an earlier stage in the debate, McDowell called it a telephone directory. Then he called the wide-ranging Bill a “massive supertanker coming in to dock in a very small port”.
Although as its pages number 747, a jumbo jet coming in to land at Abbeyshrule might have been more appropriate.
The morning debate was punctuated by brief pauses to welcome visitors to the Upper House. This has become a somewhat irritating practice in the Seanad where it seems that proceedings must stop immediately when any TD or Senator brings a family member, political acquaintance, old schoolfriend, school tour, constituency group or somebody they met in the pub the night before into the chamber.
Whoever is in the Chair then namechecks the visitors for the record and their heroic chaperones bask in the brownie points.
Independent TD for Galway West Noel Grealish is always belting around Leinster House escorting groups of constituents. He had so many in with him on Wednesday – including a very large party from New York – that the stand-in Cathaoirleach had to take two goes at pointing them out.
Former minister Dick Roche and his wife received a warm welcome in the afternoon during the Criminal Justice Bill.
Leas Chathaoirleach Mark Daly went overboard with this blatant showing off by Senators to new heights when he did a stint in the Chair during the planning debate, which was a very serious affair with speakers from both sides making forceful and impassioned contributions.
Mary Seery-Kearney was on her feet, talking about the need to ensure that large developments factor in the need for medical facilities in their plans. “As the competition for space goes up in these compact urban developments, there is no obligation to provide a medical centre,” she said. “In looking at planning observations in the past four years, they have been real considerations. All those supports have necessary implications for quality of living... in regulations and statutory instruments and whatever afterwards, those things need to be considered and need to be prioritised. I just...”
Mary was in full flow when Mark – who loves nothing better than hobnobbing on Capitol Hill with US politicians because, unlike here, senators are very important in America – suddenly butted in.
“Just to interrupt you, one second,” he murmured with a big smile on his face, casting warm glances across at the side wall as a startled Seery-Kearney stopped talking.
“We’ve a member in the Distinguished Visitors Gallery, the Lieutenant Governor of Washington, Mr Denny Heck,” burbled Mark, directly addressing his honoured guest.
“You’re most welcome here. Having served a number of terms in Washington DC as a member of Congress I’m sure you knew Congressman McDermott as well who served there for many years and he’s [Heck] here with us with our Consul General, Micheál Smith. You’re most welcome here today to see democracy in action and having served in Washington, and Washington DC, if you’ve any tips for us on how to do our business here, we’re always open to new ideas anois and thank you for being here.”
The way politics is going in the States at the moment, most people would have had the same thought when the simpering senator made his request: “Ah no, you’re grand Denny. We’re okay here, thanks all the same.”
The two men smiled politely.
Then Mark got back to business.
“Anois, an Seanadóir,” he said briskly, inviting Mary to resume whatever it was she was saying before his head was turned by the visiting Yank.
“Thank you. Thank you very much” said Mary. “Em, I just, I suppose, to say in conclusion, I wanted to just make a couple of remarks...”
She went on to argue that, contrary to some accounts, there was “extensive” pre-legislative discussion on the Bill.
Remarks which Senator Daly didn’t hear because he was busy gesticulating to Victor Boyhan, one of the stand-in Chairs, pointing to himself, then to Victor and then to Lieutenant Governor Heck, a Democrat who is president of the Washington State Senate.
Victor duly obliged and nipped into the Chair, leaving Mark free to swan off with Smith and Heck.
But the intervention did not pass unnoticed.
A short time later, with the Leas Chathaoirleach gone from the chamber, Labour’s Rebecca Moynihan, who would later address the difficult area of compulsory purchase orders, was still bristling over his behaviour.
“Can I just put it on record that somebody who is sitting in the Chair should not interrupt a Senator mid-flow to welcome somebody to the Visitors’ Gallery. I just want to be clear on that. That’s not a fair thing to do. They can wait until the member finishes their contribution and then do it.”
She wasn’t wrong.
“But I thought it was hugely disrespectful to Senator Seery Kearney, when she was mid-speech, to be interrupted mid-flow about that.”
She was right there, too.
The Seanad returns in September.
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