Ms Alma Walsh:

I will pick up on the previous round of questions also and refocus on the alignment and sequencing we have been discussing in the past month through our engagement with local authorities and regional assemblies.

Mr. Cussen and Mr. Hogan have alluded to the fact that we are in a transition phase. We have been communicating what we see as the next steps and the road map for implementation in working with the regional assemblies and local authorities. Related to that and a matter which has been the focus of some comments today is the county development plan and its role. What is to happen to it? How is it to be aligned and what is the timeframe for it? The Bill before the Seanad includes amendments to prepare and allow for a deferral of all development plans nationally. The rationale for this is twofold. It will allow for national policy to be decided, followed by regional policy and then local policy which can be worked through the county and city development plan approach and, equally, the local area plan approach. This is a landscape on which the RSES has not yet been decided by each of the three regional assemblies. They are involved in that process and that is the policy priority for the remainder of the year and into early 2019. It would be inappropriate for local authorities to attempt to start to write or review a development plan without the regional signposting or policy being decided.

In terms of the hierarchy, what is being reinforced through the amendment of the Bill is that national policy will be decided ahead of regional and then county development plans. There are timelines that allow for a concertina effect. There will be a number of development plans which will have to initiate a plan review or pick it up after a pause and within a short timeframe after the RSES has been adopted. That allows for a kick-start of the development plan system once regional policy has been decided. Local authorities have been briefed on this issue, but the Bill has not yet been enacted and commenced. Until it is, the current status of plans remains in force. It is disruptive to the system in one sense, but the wider benefit in the longer term will ensure local authorities will not be without the guidance of national and regional policy in preparing their own plans. The focus for the remainder of the year is on regional assemblies preparing the three RSES plans. Local authorities are already involved in that process through the SPAs and technical working groups. We are encouraging that process to continue.

Another large theme which has emerged through submissions and our engagement is single housing in the countryside. It is important to speak about rural housing in a wider housing context. The NPF has suggested to local authorities the preparation of a housing need demand assessment. It is not designed to replace current housing strategies, but it is a composite methodology to allow a local authority as both the planning and housing authority to understand housing needs over the plan period and estimate and project what the tenure will be and for whom it will cater. It could be for people over 65 years of age or an assessment of how much student accommodation is required. It will be about how much affordable housing is required and what the private market has the potential to deliver. Part of it will be about how rural housing fits into the overall picture and it will differ for every local authority. To supplement it, the national planning framework does not amend rural housing policy, as it stands. It acknowledges the different local authority policies in place, of which there are 29 to 30. While all of them are based on the sustainable rural housing guidelines, their application has caused difficulties in some cases. What we are saying is we need a composite picture of what is required and what the baseline is. That goes back to what Mr. Hogan said about development plans working from out-of-date population projections. We are trying to realign and re-establish the system in order that we will support both executives and elected members in decision-making based on up-to-date evidence - everything from census results to HNDA, allowing a more effective core strategy to come into force.

Deputy Barry Cowen referred to the onerous nature of a development plan. It is a two-year review process and there are allocated times for the public, the executive and members to deal with it. It is certainly onerous. While the professional expertise of a council is available to members and the executive is in place to advise, there are plenty of examples of where the executive has also needed professional assistance. For example, there is the matter of a strategic environmental assessment where ecological expertise is required to enable an appropriate assessment to be made or where a strategic flood risk assessment is required. That is all to the benefit of the wider plan and the members where the expertise is taken on board. The advice is designed to be presented to the members. It is absolutely acknowledged that the process is onerous and time consuming, in particular given the volume of documentation involved.

There are a couple of other points on which to pick up. On the all-island dimension and the engagement at the later stages of finalisation of the NPF, it was slightly more difficult when the political establishment was not in force to allow political engagement to happen. However, we have involved our colleagues in the North of Ireland and engaged with them. The chief planner in the North was invited and sat on the advisory group for the national planning framework. There very much was a presence and engagement which we were conscious of securing.

In the case of Drogheda, there was a significant number of submissions received, albeit I do not have the figure.