Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I really want to focus on councillors this time. I started with the CCMA because all the questions were going to the councillors. I was beginning to wonder what the regional assembly and the CCMA were doing. When we look at the submissions, what process are we in? As I said, we are looking at pre-legislative scrutiny of the draft Bill. We will take on board all the submissions and conversations here and feed into a process to come up with X number of recommendations. That report will be published and sent back to Government.

I took from the document that there was some concern from both local authority representative bodies. I certainly know from my extensive engagement with city and county councillors that there was much concern about the ten-year plan. I see a bit of consensus arising today. I am somewhat surprised but if that is the consensus, that is great. It looks like we are now seeing some sort of consensus to the ten years on the basis of this mid-term review. If that is the consensus among the CCMA, the AILG, and LAMA, then that is the easiest bit of work I have ever done or been involved with in local government. I take that on board. That is a positive coming out of these proceedings. If the Government and its officials are watching, which they certainly are, they will be quite excited by the idea because that was considered one of the major hurdles. In all our briefings, of course, we identify hurdles and receive much documentation. Before I move on, I acknowledge the Library and Research Service, which produced a digest in respect of the Planning and Development Bill. That briefing paper on this policy is really helpful. We can circulate the links to it.

I will perhaps start with Councillor Killian. Is that the consensus now? Does he think there is a consensus today to push it out for ten years or is there a more mid-term view of between five and ten years? He might tease that piece out for me.