Ms Emer Ó Siochrú:

It is very difficult to know. We share many of these concerns. Even though local control and maximising participation is spoken about, the scale is very large and LCDCs for an entire county will not really be at grassroots level. It diverges from the European model. We can see within the legislation it is possible to have more and we would like to see this happen.

The biggest issue in rural Ireland at present probably relates to wind farms. We must consider how local government reform will help resolve this in a positive way for everybody. Planning regulations will not do it because it involves more than planning. One can see all the arguments for wind farms with regard to the powerful economic SPCs which will be established but one knows this is not where it will be resolved. Where it will be resolved or not is at local community level because this is where the problem is. We are with the local community on this; if it does not work socially and economically for the local community it will not work for the environment, even if the other two structures support it. We are very anxious to have groups in the LCDCs which are effective and whose voice is heard so there is a better flow of information from the ground up. In the existing structure we must have regard to regional plans, but there appears to be a lack of confidence in the voice of local people in feeding up to the other committees.

What, for instance, is the link between the local community development committees and the powerful economic strategic policy committees? How will we be able to feed back into the development plans? Apart from the requirement that development plans take note of and have regard to the LCDCs, how will the latter inform the former? That is not clear. We want to be involved to ensure the loop is circular and that at every point on the loop information feeds back from the ground into the county plans and up to the regional level, before coming back along the loop again. We are very much on the same side as the committee with regard to these concerns. We have noted, however, that the legislation is very much enabling in nature. We hope further detail will be provided and that we will get the outcome we seek from it.