Sorry, Mayo County Council, but you've overstepped. You might think that you know what's best for the people of Mayo, and you might believe that you're acting in the best interests of your own friends and neighbors, but the Minister for the Environment knows far more than you ever could.
John Gormley is so put out over the actions of the Mayo County Council that he's about to introduce legislation that will consolidate zoning decision-making power in his own green hands. Can't have local people making these important plans, not when there's a Minister sitting in Dublin who should have such authority.
Too much land is being zoned for development, in Mr. Gormley's eyes. We need green space, and if county councillors can't figure that out, someone has to do the figuring for them.
The Oireachtas Committee on the Environment, however, doesn't agree.
Sean Fleming, the committee's chair, is quite confident that Mr. Gormley has more than enough power already, and it's not fair to the local citizens when their elected council gets overturned behind closed doors without public meetings. If the people of Mayo want to allow new houses to be built, and Mr. Gormley doesn't, what right does he have to deny the people?
That's Paddy McGuinness's view. It's Gormley's way or the highway, the Mayo County councillor believes, and where's the give and take, the compromise that gives everyone a chance to get something in the end?
The people in Clare thumbed their west-of-Ireland noses at Mr. Gormley after one of his directives, and the councillors in Monaghan and Waterford are under pressure to adhere to the Minister's notions of proper planning. Laois and Rathdown have already felt his green power to overrule.
Give a man an inch and he'll take a mile, and then he'll tell the people who own the mile what they can do with it. Until new legislation returns decisions to the local level and puts Mr. Gormley in his place, that is.
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