Mr. David Walsh:

I will pass some of the questions to my colleagues to answer and the other organisations will offer their input. I will address a couple of the issues.

Senator Boyhan and Deputy Ó Broin mentioned the timing and challenges of the strategy. As Mr. Hogan has said, it is a challenge. Equally, as nicely picked up by Deputy Casey, we need a document that is relevant and can influence funding, investment decisions and align policies not just within the planning sphere but across other investments ranging from energy to education and transport.

In terms of alignment, part of the drive to advance the document as early as possible is our alignment with the mid-term review of the capital investment plan. We have had discussions at Cabinet committee level. Bilateral meetings have also taken place between the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform on how we can ensure that the mid-term review, that is due to take place in the first half of next year, will be informed by, perhaps not the final adapted plan but certainly the key principles and priorities that will emerge in a draft plan. As Deputy Casey has said, that is partly a driver to ensure that the national planning framework, NPF, becomes the touchstone that others match their plans with rather than catching up after measures have been adopted.

We have a very small team and there is a significant challenge. We do not rely just on the Department or regional assemblies that will do a lot of the work. The principles around the NPF will be made concrete and developed into something that is of more direct relevance to people living in the regions through the regional economic strategies.

On the point about ensuring this is not the same old consultation process, we get the same views from the stakeholders who we know will come back into it. We have decided to develop and build towards a January launch at a national level and rolled out across all 31 authorities to translate the questions that have been posed, including the more basic questions that are relevant, and not just from a national context. The responses of people living in villages or communities to questions such as how they see their communities in 2040 or what they would like to see in them can be of relevance to local authorities, various community groups and individuals who think about how their children will grow up in a different society and country in 20 years time. We can work back from that and we are tailoring the information.

Mr. Hogan indicated that there will be layers of documents. As well as technically detailed and evidence-based analysis to underpin some of the big issues we must face - we call them hard choices - there will also be a document that will be more general and will stimulate those discussions. The last layer will be a short, relevant and pertinent document - someone suggested that we must write a document that a ten year old can understand - that outlines what the NPF means to individuals, how it will impact on the development of the country and how it will be reflected in the regions and, more important, in the local plan.

As part of a multi-strand campaign, we plan to roll out early in the new year a communications plan with different spheres. We will tap into the social media side and looking at more innovative ways to access. We have not finalised those and it will be a matter for the Minister and the Government to take decisions about the scale of the programme. However, that is how we see ourselves. We know that those who are interested and have engaged in the past, like the institutes, regions and local authorities, will continue to feed into the process. We want to broaden that audience, however, and get more input in order that what comes out at the end of the document is a plan that is relevant and has buy-in not only from the system but from everybody. We recognise that is a significant challenge.

If we are looking at how we engage with the local government sector, and Senator Boyhan was quite correct, we cannot get this message out just from the centre. The intention is that we will mobilise a locally focused campaign beyond January for each of the 31 authorities. It will be for the chief executive, the management team, the elected members and the different groupings and committees underneath to discuss these matters, to make them available, perhaps even to bring them into some of the schools and organisations, and be asking those kinds of questions in order that it generates a discussion that can feed back into the decision-making process.

A question was asked about the marine and land strategy. There are two elements in that. Mr. Hogan mentioned the requirement for a marine spatial plan. That is under way and over the next couple of years we will develop a huge base, working with the Marine Institute and other Departments, to frame a process and vision for the marine environment. Perhaps more relevant is the work that we have been doing within the Department to align better the planning system and foreshore licensing system through a proposed maritime area and foreshore (amendment) Bill. It has been a long time in gestation and it was trying to address a range of issues around the consent processes and interactions and trying to streamline the environmental considerations across projects that require planning permission, possibly licensing by a Minister, and the foreshore element. That work is well advanced and is among the Department's priorities to get published during this current session. That will provide a good framework for dealing practically with something that is happening but has an impact on land management. There is a broader planning framework link-up with the marine spatial plan that will also address the more strategic and principle views.

I will ask Mr. Cussen to deal with the issues around the advisory report and the lessons learned. The economic environment shifted quickly after the national spatial strategy, NSS, was published. We have taken strong lessons from it and certainly the NPF and the Scottish NPF version have a lot to offer us. I will ask Mr. Hogan to touch on the socioeconomic disadvantage issues and how that feeds into our modelling and scenarios.