Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the officials for coming in. There is a lot involved. My colleague, Deputy Ó Broin, highlighted problems with this legislation from the word go, prior to it coming into being. My big issue as a public representative has always been the provision of housing as quickly as possible in a sustainable way. I come from an area in Cork which has seen massive regeneration. One thing we have known from the boom and bust cycle we have experienced is that, as Roy Keane says, "fail to prepare - prepare to fail". When infrastructure and services are not put in, the result is communities that are not sustainable and experience huge problems down the line. We are spending hundreds of millions of euro trying to rectify problems that should have been dealt with at the start. The problem with this legislation is that it was developer led and developer designed. It was built for developers and not for people. I have significant concerns about density. Density depends on the communities. There are areas where, because there is an effort to fit in as many units as possible, we will have problems down the road. Take the St. Kevin's hospital site in my constituency of Cork North-Central. It has gone to the SHD and there is supposed to be a decision before the end of the year.