Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We spent quite a bit of time yesterday and the day before trying to work out what is the best way to proceed with these cumbersome groups. What probably worked best for us was our approach to our discussion of the amendments tabled by the Chair, Deputy Matthews. The Ministers of State outlined in clusters their specific responses to specific groups of amendments. We were then able to have a back and forth on those and then moved on. Certainly, it would be my hope that we do something similar today.

Like others, I welcome the Minister's proposed Report Stage amendments to section 69, which would be very welcome. There is an obligation on the Minister,however, in addition to giving a general overview that I will come to in a second on each of the clusters of our amendments, to specifically state why he is not minded to support those at this Stage and to allow us at least an opportunity to convince him of the merits of some of them in order that he might then reconsider as Report Stage amendments of his own. Contrary to his opening remark, the vast majority of the amendments are not prescriptive in the sense that they are not insisting what the content of plans should be, whether that be development plans, development plan strategies or housing plans. They simply place a clear requirement on local authorities, when developing these different types of plans, to deal with these specific issues and that is really crucial. We will get to that when we go through the groups of amendments. As a case in point, I did not hear the Minister make any argument against amendment No. 30, which we are speaking to. He should not worry; he will get a chance to respond. Maybe I have misunderstood but, again, where specific amendments are not being supported it is valuable for us to understand the specific logic why in order that we get a chance to respond to those.

We are discussing amendment No. 30 and I will come to our first cluster of amendments in a moment, namely, amendments Nos. 308 and 310 to 312, inclusive, on development plan reviews and development plans. I wish to make one point about Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's response to the amendment tabled by Deputy Ó Snodaigh, and again we will come to that amendment. Protecting existing ribbon developments does not necessarily mean promoting more. Also, in the same way as with our conversations on suburban development and making suburban developments more sustainable, one can actually protect and expand ribbon developments and make them more sustainable at the same time in terms of greater uses of densification. Like I say, we can deal with the matter when we get to the amendments. Some of the solutions that the Irish-language planning officers have raised with us, particularly within the rural Gaeltachtaí, could be quite usefully addressed by taking certain forms of what one could describe as traditionally unsustainable ribbon settlements. I am thinking of creative and innovative ways to make them more sustainable, precisely on the grounds that the Minister has outlined, that allows population growth and greater use of the language. Again, that is something we will come to.

I am specifically interested to hear why the Minister does not think amendment No. 30 is useful and then we can discuss the other amendments after we know.