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

I have a number of follow-on questions. We had an interesting conversation in the last session and Mary Henchy of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council was teasing out some of her thoughts on this. It goes back to the area of ministerial policy statements versus the local plans of various kinds and how we get the balance right on the need for any Government to frame State-wide policy and have that consistency of approach and certainty, which I think everybody on the committee supports, while still allowing the planning authorities and local authorities to find the best possible way to apply those and have democratic accountability. That is not a simple process. Through the strategic housing developments, SHDs, and the section 28 guidelines, we have learned to our great cost that if we do this wrong it makes things worse.

Again, I am going back to the key sections of the Bill from section 22 onwards. Has the Bill got that right? Are there useful changes we as a committee could make to the Bill to get that process right? I am concerned we could be opening up a whole new set of conflicts in our planning system and that is not in anybody's interest. I am interested in our guests' views on that.

Mr. Jones made a distinction between policy statements related to forward planning as opposed to development management. It would be helpful to the committee if he could explain that to us in non-planning language. I have some other questions after that.