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

To be considered long term or renewable, most leases would have to be for longer than five years. If a lease is longer than five years, the tenant has the option to renew it. If it is for less than five years, the tenant has to leave if the landowner asks. As such, what Mr. McCormack said makes sense.

Complimentary comments were made about Cork City Council. I can be critical of local authorities. This is especially true of Cork City Council, where I was a member for nearly 12 years, but it does great work. It is good that meetings on the Cork city development plan are happening at the moment. The witnesses mentioned apartment or rooftop gardens and open spaces. Other countries are decades ahead of us in this respect. It is good that Cork City Council is holding these meetings but it is a pity that not all local authorities are being so proactive.

The Cork food policy and working with the council have been mentioned. Touching on Deputy Ó Broin's point about green spaces, there are a large number of planning applications now. I come from Knocknaheeny. When it was built 50 years ago, there was nothing there – no green spaces, parks, playgrounds, schools, churches or shopping centres. At the height of the Celtic tiger 15 or 20 years ago, houses were being built without sustainable planning for communities, including green spaces and community gardens. I have serious concerns that the Government and developers are now trying to maximise density and that this will cause harm through not having enough green spaces. We must be planning communities, not just houses or apartments. We can see what Cork City Council is doing.

Targets were mentioned. It is important that we set ourselves goals because they can be measured against. The witnesses could then appear before us once per year and we could have a discussion on how we have done over the preceding 12 months. We could invite local authorities to say how they had done. We can work on this hand in hand.

I appreciate that the Chairman has given me latitude, but the planning issue here is the importance of community gardens and green spaces. I wish to give a shout-out to people in Hollyhill in my constituency. There is a lovely community garden there, but the same should be found in all communities. Have the witnesses concerns about whether enough consideration is being given to green spaces and community gardens in new planning applications?