Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Can we be serious, please? In counties Louth and Meath the two county councils met and decided they needed an area plan which covered both jurisdictions. When that happened, the plan was produced and published and people on the councils bought into it. However, the local district committee did not agree with it because it did not like the zoning provided in it. The legal decision was that the consensus of the officials of Meath County Council and Louth County Council in the area plan was null and void and had no status. The local area committee then rezoned hundreds of acres. This is a major scandal in planning in east Meath. That is what the laughing was about, but that is the problem the Minister of State is trying to address.