Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Ms Graham, Mr. Hogan and Mr. O'Sullivan for their attendance. This has been the third meeting on this topic. The committee will now try to put together a report on the matter. We have had a fascinating nine hours of discussion with a broad range of experts. I studied planning years ago, like many people here, and living over the shops was talked about in the 1990s and the 2000s, but I think there is a real resurgence of the idea and a real need for it now. We have looked at what has happened during the Covid pandemic with working from home and the realisation that our towns and villages are now a lot more to us than just somewhere from where we commute and where we spend a few hours at the weekend. With digitisation, I think we will see more opportunity for people to work from home, at work clubs, etc. That brings that local economic benefit as well.

Of course, housing needs have to underpin all we have discussed. The collaborative town centre health checks are key to that. It is a matter of collaboration in order that it does not become the local authority's plan or the planner's plan but is a collective stakeholder involvement such that it is our town or village and this is how we want to see it develop, assisted by the Department and the local authorities. I believe the local authorities and the Departments want to assist and see the value in this. Having the county architects there will be key to that and to string all these different policies and visions together. There needs to be that mix of incentives and penalties in place to stimulate this, to move it along and to make it easy for people because people inherently know what they want in their town or village and know what they want to do in it.

I look forward to the committee report. I look forward to all committee members trying to work together and to pull together all the advice we have received over recent months. I thank everybody for their attendance today. I will now adjourn the meeting until 6 p.m. this Thursday, when the committee will commence pre-legislative scrutiny on the monuments and archaeological heritage Bill.