Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I do not understand, if the hierarchy of road users model is contained in DMURS, a document local engineers and roads designers must comply with, why we cannot reference it in another statutory document, which would be the planning Act. I take the point some people would consider TOD to be big development around high capacity - Adamstown and that type of thing - but we need to recognise how many of our transport emissions come from those 2 km or 3 km car journeys that happen in every town and village because roads are not safe or there is not segregated cycling or decent footpaths. That is because the car has taken over for the past 60 years. If the Minister of State commits to looking at that and coming back on how we can work it in, I will accept that. However, there are a number of questions I want to ask on this.

Amendment No. 144 concerns section 19(3), which states the NPF shall make provision for certain matters. The amendment suggests instead of "promotion" to put in "implementation". That may be a difficulty because the NPF is not really an implementation model and more an overarching framework, and possibly RSES is as well but once we get into development plans and local area plans, there should be implementation because that is where the action and the delivery happens. What is the difficulty? I do not mean amendment No. 144 but possibly further on. I will have to have a look through the numbers.

Where it refers to "sustainable settlement patterns" in section 19(3)(c), is it understood that "sustainable" also applies to "transportation strategies"?