Mr. John McCarthy:

Chairman, may I conclude my response to Deputy Stanley? Let me clarify that Ms Sarah Neary was talking about internal layouts and specifications. We are very clear on that. I do not think local authorities would thank us for imposing a limited number of external designs on local authority housing. What one sees from the outside of a house has to take into account context and location. We have seen some very creative designs from the local authorities that others in the private housing development have latched on to. I would not want anything we do to try to standardise and streamline processes to curtail creativity and good design in any way.

As the former planner who we in the Department poached is held in such high esteem, I might ask him to comment on compact growth. However, I wish to say a few general words. I do not disagree with the point made by the Deputy on the cycling strategy. We look forward to the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment rolling out a broader cycling strategy. We would look to that to inform planning policies and approaches in development plans that would then facilitate that as part of an overall national strategy. We would be very keen on that. Whether it is the use of long gardens or other ideas, the point Deputy Lahart makes is essentially what we are about when we talk about compact growth. We are trying to prioritise the use of buildings or areas of land that are underutilised for development, so that the roll-out of the carpet of development does not continue but becomes more concentrated in areas where there already are established services that can be relied on to support them. I will not dwell on the granny flat proposal but as we recognised two years ago, one of the five pillars of Rebuilding Ireland is how to utilise the existing housing stock. We are very conscious of the fact - and I do not want to stray into territory the Chairman wants to keep me out of - that this development is important from the compact growth point of view and how we plan better in order that it can have a positive influence in respect of emissions. We are very conscious that in any country, inevitably there are houses that are underutilised by virtue of life cycle. We put in place a competition designed to bring forward a proposal or concept that would look at what might be called an empty nest home and how it could be modified for an older person to continue living in the ground floor, and this makes sense in terms of mobility and so on, but perhaps converting the upper floor into a self-contained unit. We conducted that competition and the project that won through on that is now moving on to the concept testing stage in a house in Clondalkin. I think there will be a lot of learning arising from that project and - incentives aside - that learning and the promotion of that learning could be hugely important in terms of supporting people who might want to do that. We have had previous discussions on whether we were forcing people into this but that is not what it is about. We are trying to support and facilitate-----