Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

That reminds me of an answer I got yesterday or today from the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government on the Flemish decree. I asked whether there would be public consultation on the new rural planning arrangements. He said there would not.

He told me the Department had already consulted the local authorities but what he meant was that it had consulted senior planners in the local authorities, not members of the public or politicians. Normally, when a sector is consulted, the strongest part of the organised sector is consulted, rather than the small, disorganised part which does not have representative bodies and cannot be consulted easily.