Mr. Niall Cussen:

I am delighted and will feed the Senator's liking of the leaflets back to the team. They worked very hard on them and we are delighted with the feedback. In fact, we would like to do more because anything that can be done to explain the workings of the planning process to people and how they can engage with it is great from our point of view.

The Senator asked about infrastructural supports and how we assess them and engage with them. To reassure her on this point, we have a particular statutory role and we engage with other infrastructural providers, particularly through watching, listening and engaging with them in the context of their statutory engagement with the plan making process. These include the Department of Education and the various transport agencies, Irish Water and the National Parks and Wildlife Service. We maintain a close network with them regarding what they say on schools provision, amenities and the physical infrastructure. As we put our view together, we keep an eye on ministerial guidelines, which stress the importance of engagement with soft and hard infrastructure providers when going through the plan making process and stress the tiered approach to zoning. There is a lot at the back of the NPF which, in a nutshell, requires local authorities to ground their plans on solid evidence that the various infrastructure agencies know what is coming down the tracks and have made, or are capable of making, provision accordingly. Plans are not flights of fancy and not a case of build it and they will come.

There are many arrangements in the plan making process. We will be looking at this and the veracity of it, in other words, whether the local authority has evidently done its homework on all of this engagement. Clearly if a number of infrastructure agencies stated they are short of this or that and do not have the budget, it would call into question the soundness of a plan where there was doubt about whether the money would be there for the necessary infrastructure. The Government is putting €116 billion into the NDP and billions of euro into urban regeneration funds and many other infrastructure funds. It is putting serious investment behind the planning frameworks. The resources are there where there is a focused, prioritised and structured approach. We are the backstop to make sure the homework is done.

The Senator raised a very interesting point about Bluebell, Kylemore and Nangor Road. I know the area well. They are probably areas that are transitioning as they move from warehousing and industrial use with a mix of residential into more mixed use residential and new employment and new opportunities for local communities. The Senator touched on a very important point. It is very important that the plan making process is mindful of the needs of the existing community and the particular functional needs it has regarding issues such as parking, where people will use their work vehicles or where they will locate their work vehicles once an area has gone through a development phase. We will be watching this very closely through the local plan making process. I cannot highlight enough the investment of resources and time and space being available to go through the detail of this at the local plan making process.

We have not yet seen the local plans that will fill in a lot of this detail. The city and county development plans set out a very high level framework and then the urban master plans and local area plans come together. South Dublin County Council and Dublin City Council, as the Senator is probably aware, are working on an arrangement to facilitate this coming forward as and when the main county development plans are finalised. There is a stage process.