Mr. Colin Ryan:

As for urban towns and villages in a broad sense and the point the Deputy makes, the N63 is presumably a national primary route and that is something that is provided for under particular legislation. I presume that details around lighting should come as part of the broad premise but it depends on where the road is because national primary routes might not all be lit as the Deputy is aware, but in urban areas they generally are lit so that might be something to look at, broadly speaking. It depends on the location of these projects and what their function is. The function of a national primary route is broadly to remove large amounts of traffic nationally and a local route is for moving small amounts of traffic locally and I mean that in a broad sense. That is commensurate to access for walking, cycling and so on. Broadly speaking, maybe it should be looked at in respect of where this infrastructure is going in and I know that by and large, urban areas are lit. They might be improved from time to time but by and large that is the case.

On the Deputy's previous point, the development plan is for a framework of development and on uses and zoning, there is generally a flexibility on the type of uses that could be looked at, which allows the local authority to make a decision that does not contravene the development plan. In a town centre a range of uses will go in such as hotels, shops, takeaways, schools and other housing and the local authority is given the capability to make a call on that from a development management point of view. The other issue is that then there is a development management point of view, namely, in the decision making around development applications and that has to be dealt with separately to the plan. While it takes cognisance of the plan, as Ms Martin said, that might be appealed to An Bord Pleanála. Those issues have to be taken into consideration in making the plan. It is flexible enough and clear enough in terms of its intent but it has the operational capability on a day-to-day operational basis to make decisions that are in line with the proper plans for sustainable development in the area and in line with the zoning objective.