Ms Attracta U? Bhroin:

I thank Deputy Ó Broin. Let me be absolutely clear that we very much welcomed being invited to attend on the planning advisory forum but one of the first issues that we had was the representation within that forum in terms of the lack of reflection of Irish society today in terms of diversity, different challenges, different backgrounds, everything. I was very much joined with Ms Duvall in this in terms of pushing for greater representation of wider civil society. There were some concessions made, but that is a fundamental issue in relation to the perspectives.

We would echo the concerns of the Irish Planning Institute in respect of this. The draft Bill that we see here has nothing like the level of detail needed. Indeed, some of the changes are completely new to us. For example, we were specifically told in discussion paper 6, in September, that there would be no change in respect of the special cost regime that applies in judicial review and it came as a bolt out of the blue that that has now massively changed.

Despite the terms of reference and despite the fact that there was supposed to be discussion on legislative proposals, we never saw them. There were very high-level discussions on conceptual issues but we never got any real sense of what the nature of the changes was.

Throughout, our call has been consistent that on something of this magnitude, to reflect the words of the Royal Institute of Architects of Ireland, RIAI, and many people who are saying the same thing, this is "a once in a generation opportunity". It will impact every soul on this island and beyond. We have colleagues in Northern Ireland watching these proceedings today.

It is incumbent on us to get this right. Public consultation is key. The public have been excluded from this process and that is unacceptable.