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

I am going to continue this conversation. We will get to Part 9 of the Bill in the next hour. Part 3, and chapter 3, in particular, and how it relates to some of the expedited procedures is very important. For many of us, especially those of us who dealt with the legislation on SHDs and had to deal with the outworking of the mandatory ministerial guidelines on building heights and design standards, the issue is not that we do not think central government should have a role in setting Statewide policy. Of course the democratically elected members of Government should have the right to do so. The issue is how it is done, how it relates to local plans and other legal obligations, both domestic and European, and the question of what works in practice. That is where I want to take the conversation.

I go back to Dr. Logue's point around the definition of what I would call a ministerial policy statement, because it relates to the function of the Minister, not of the nation. Representatives from the Irish Planning Institute made some very helpful suggestions at our meeting last week, including the proposal that there should be a distinction made between a policy statement that is for forward planning and one that is for development management. They made a very strong case to separate those two aspects. Do the witnesses from any of the organisations represented today have a view on how we might define what these policy statements should be? That is my first question.

The second is around how the statement should then relate to the various expedited procedures for retrospectively amending the variety of plans that are out there, including the potential for retrospectively amending strategic development zones, SDZs. Is there a possibility we could end up with all sorts of satellite litigation, to go back to the point made in the IEN submission, whereby legal challenges start being made to plans or to the retrospective expedited amendment to those plans? Whether or not one thinks it is a good idea, how do the witnesses see all of that working in practice? I am interested in their views on those two points in the first instance.