Ms Valerie Loughnane:

With respect to the monitoring and so on and so forth, we spoke about that previously regarding the Irish language enurements which have to be signed up to in complying with a condition. Therefore, the conditions have to be complied with and that is the monitoring as such. I think we spoke about enurements at the start of the session today.

On the linguistic impact statements, we can certainly root out those numbers in terms of how many there have been in the past ten years and how it has developed. With respect to the fact that, since 2008, we have a Gaeltacht plan up to 2021, we have learned a number of things and we have tried to address them as we are going along regarding the application. There were a number of infrastructural deficits, in a way, in the context of employment and so on. Thankfully the 110 kV project was constructed a number of years ago to Connemara which gives continuity of power and certainty of power. At one time there was an issue with trying to keep employment there and building the numbers. There are a number of different facets involved.

From that perspective, in the variation we did in 2018, we went to the three islands. We developed a framework plan for the islands, which was a new intervention introduced in 2018, and have developed it further in our plan with a Gaeltacht chapter. We learned that the islands’ needs are different. Their situation is different. They are a Gaeltacht, but they are also physically different not alone because they are islands but because of the nature of the terrain and the designations and so on. We learned that the island community needs a slightly different framework from that of the mainland. We looked at various different aspects of policy that worked in 2008 up to 2018 and amended some of them in order for them to work a bit better for the Gaeltacht areas.

On the areas under urban pressure, there are difficulties from that perspective. We previously mentioned that in cases where we granted a planning application for a once-off house for somebody who qualified under the neartú Gaeltacht and so on, if he or she was closer to Galway city or that area of urban pressure, An Bord Pleanála would look at the fact it is under urban pressure and possibly consider that as an area where there was a difficulty in providing a one-off rural house.

Since 2008, we have learned quite a lot. If we were to look at our Gaeltacht plan of 2008, which we have done, compared with what is proposed in our Gaeltacht chapter of our draft country development plan, we would see a noticeable number of differences that we have learned from and have amended policies. I hope that answers the question.