Mr. David Healy:

In Rio de Janeiro in 1992 the world committed to Agenda 21. The Local Agenda 21 aspect was about a participative process for sustainable development. What has been striking in Ireland is that the county and city development boards did form that style of participative process. The problem, resulting in the gap, was that they did not specifically have sustainable development as their remit, nor did they have environmental pillar representatives. While they were formally identified by the Government as a delivery agent for Local Agenda 21, what was expected did not actually happen. At this stage, we need to ensure, through the LCDCs and the SPCs, that sustainable development is part of the remit. We must also ensure participation. The Government's policy document, Our Sustainable Future, makes exactly the same point on integrating sustainable development into the processes involved. From there, we get to the specific points on the proposed reform which Mr. Ewing will address.