Mr. Frank McDonald:

The culture is an anti-planning culture in this country. There is still a belief that people have a right to do whatever they like with their own land. They ask who these planners are to come and tell them that they cannot. That is a particularly prevalent and deep-rooted view that exists pretty much right across the country. That makes it very difficult for planners to point us in a more rational direction. If there is not a consensus on the need for planning - planning essentially involves making tough decisions about what we are going to do and what we are not going to do - it is an issue. We are not used to being told we cannot do things. We do not want to be told we cannot do things; we want to be told we can and that, if one has a half-acre site, of course one will get planning permission to build on it. That is why we have 500,000 houses all over the countryside in Ireland.