Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have before us a proposal to keep the petition live and open. We must have regard to the response that we received from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government through its assistant secretary general. Once one reads the document, one realises that it does not address the issue of city status, which is the subject of the petition that we are dealing with today. On that basis, there is a proposal here to acknowledge the fact that Deputy Cassells has addressed his concerns about the population of 6,500 that would come from the Meath side and the issues addressed by Deputy O'Dowd in respect of the CSO projections about reaching city status within five years or thereabouts.