Mr. Frank McDonald:

I observed the most irrational decisions being made by local authorities in terms of the zoning of land. In some cases, as I mentioned, more land was being zoned than would be needed for decades. That is to say, so much land was being zoned that it would take decades to develop it all. Yet, the plan-making period was supposed to be five years. Every development plan has a life of five years, so all that should have been zoned was sufficient land to cover that five-year period, perhaps with a possible 20% extra as a landbank in case it was needed. What was happening, however, was that massive amounts of land were being zoned for development in different parts of the country, particularly in Leinster, because councillors were under pressure from landowners to get their particular parcel zoned for development so they could make the money and go.