Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have a few comments rather than any questions. It seems to me this is one of those issues where, with a relatively small amount of work at Government and local government level, we could make many big advances. I know Deputy McAuliffe was not being negative in any way, but I do not think very complicated legislation is needed. A legislative basis could be created with some simple amendments to the Local Government Act or the Planning and Development Acts. We all know that local authorities like the comfort of a legislative provision to empower them to do something. That seems to be a very simple proposition our committee could support.

Second, there is a requirement for this to be in the county development plans. It should not just be discretionary. If every county development plan was required to have a set of propositions and principles, and a strategy, for more community growing spaces, then they would have to be there. Our difficulty is those plans are about to be concluded. Our local authorities start their final meetings tonight so we have missed that boat, but there can be amendments.

The crucial things are how we empower communities in already settled areas to get access to the land and how we make sure that as new settlements are put in place this is taken into account. I propose we consider two simple things. It is increasingly the practice of local authorities that are doing social housing projects to have an additional fund for the wider community to, in essence, compensate either for the loss of an amenity or the disruption of the new-build period. It is a very good idea that communities get some additional traffic calming or some goalposts or whatever but, in fact, what communities often want is more resources. If some space is taken up by housing, they want some quid pro quo. Community growing spaces would be such a sensible thing to include. Every local authority housing project or approved housing body project should have to actively consider where this area needs, and could sustain, such a space and what it would be like. Communities could then be involved in the consultation around where and what that would be and how it would enhance the area in order that existing communities would not feel all they were getting was more houses and more urban congestion. They would be getting an additional resource. Given we will have increasing - although nowhere near as much as I would like - volumes of social and affordable housing projects, making sure that at the minimum all such developments have to consider the community growing space option would be a very interesting idea. We already require them to consider play spaces, sports spaces and open green spaces. It is almost adding this into one of the things. That would be eminently sensible.

Beyond that, there is a very strong argument that speaks to Deputy Gould's point. Certainly, the three of us are very strong advocates of compact growth in our urban centres for all the reasons we know that it is required. We are getting some public and private developments where rooftop gardens, rooftop pollinators and open green spaces are already being put in, but are not for others. Again, one of the things we could usefully recommend at a discussion in private session is to set the horizon higher for those inner urban areas. We know from Dublin city that there is very little vacant public land but there will be lots of development land, which will shake up the fabric of the urban environment. If we placed a higher demand on public and private developments in Cork city centre and Dublin city centre to have a greater focus on this, it would enhance those neighbourhoods.

It is important we do not just have a meeting where we agree with each other. It would be a good idea if the Chairman, who has a good read of this issue, could take on a draft letter to the Minister, which we could then discuss and make some amendments to in private session next week. It is a thing that would be relatively straightforward for the Government to work into the fabric of other work it is doing this year. It could be a positive outcome for the committee and Community Gardens Ireland.