Mr. Gavin Lawlor:

I echo what was said. The key pieces are transparency and engagement. If you want communities to engage, you have to ask their opinion and be seen to listen to that opinion. Be that through elected representatives, representative bodies or whatever, the more engagement there is when dealing with matters like national policy, the less controversy there will be. In terms of SHDs, the key issue that has resonated with communities is the implementation of national policy on height and density. They ask why something must be a certain way. They have not had an opportunity to challenge or engage with it, so they feel disenfranchised, meaning that there is not the community buy-in that is needed to achieve the densification required to deliver sustainable development. Any extra form of engagement, be it through the Oireachtas, representative bodies or opening draft plans to members of the community, would be important.

Monitoring should be evidence-based. For a long time, both of our institutes have been crying out for people to prove the need for changes and to monitor situations. I believe it was Senator Boyhan who spoke about IT systems. It is almost criminal that planning applicants are submitting very detailed applications – for example, childcare audits are a requirement in residential planning applications – that are put on a file and open for everyone to read but might be in an area where there are 50 other childcare audits. If it is properly analysed and processed, that is a large amount of information that is available for use by the planning authority and the wider community in examining deficits and needs, for example, childcare or schooling. The amount of information contained in planning applications now is colossal, is not being properly collated and managed, and is not being properly analysed except on an individual basis.

Monitor and track what happens after something is done. Devise a set of planning statistics for the country that we can measure ourselves against. Currently, we are mostly doing that in respect of housing, but what about other land uses? How are we in terms of the quantum of open space per capitaand how are we with playgrounds? We do not have metrics that we can use to test whether Dublin is doing well or Cork is not.