Mr. Paul Hogan:

Part of our analysis indicated clearly that, certainly, north of a line from Galway to Dundalk, obvious large towns or cities are few and far between and we need a different type of strategy, particularly for the north west and Border part of the country. There is much uncertainty to do with Brexit. That has been a constant theme of recent months. It has been clearly made aware to us as well that the part of the country to which I refer has generated much employment as a result of people using their own initiative and starting businesses in their own sheds, premises or whatever and leading to bigger things. It is a question of whether there is some way we can facilitate that type of activity.

It is clear that south Cavan, in particular, is coming in to the overdeveloped part of the country in terms of the settlements and the influence of Dublin. An idea we have looked at, which is mention in the paper, is that we would limit the capacity for settlements to grow endlessly, particularly in places where we have seen growth of hundreds of per cent. In parts of County Meath, for example, planning policies should prevent towns from growing three or fourfold over the course of a few years. That provides more for local communities as opposed to offering people to come in from elsewhere.

The sort of issues the Deputy raised have been communicated to us from similar distances out from Dublin where people have moved and then get stuck in negative equity and cannot go back. Many of the issues have been well communicated to us already and we are formulating responses at present.