Shane Cassells (Meath West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

On land use planning, on which I touched earlier, it is stated in TII's report that it has significant responsibilities in terms of its input into development plans and strategic development zone, SDZ, local area plans. In that respect - things are picking up again - projects involving a lot of land in different parts of the country cannot be progressed through planning stage because the planners and An Bord Pleanála have shot down plans owing to a lack of infrastructure. I am not talking about infrastructure under the auspices of the activation scheme which the Government has introduced for individual private sites, rather I am talking about actual physical parts of towns. My town is one of a few in the country that have an SDZ, but no work on adjoining zoned sites can take place owing to the lack of traffic capacity in that part of the town. I am sure that is the case in many other towns also. Where is TII's forward-planning section in trying to progress these plans? This ties in completely with the challenge with which the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, is faced in delivering housing units and that is often lost in the debate in the Dáil Chamber. People say we need housing now and so on, but a lot of these things will never be progressed without the actual infrastructure, whether bridges or anything else. In the case of my area, unless a bridge is constructed across the River Blackwater, projects in the entire north Navan area that has been zoned for development will not progress.