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

I thank the witnesses for their submissions. I will direct my questions to Mr. Mandal in the first round and to Ms Foster and Mr. Heneghan in the second round to ensure there is adequate time to respond.

I am conscious that Mr. Mandal represents the Dublin Democratic Planning Alliance and also has enormous experience working through the planning system under two different sets of laws and is now bringing his experience to bear on this Bill. He spoke about the Bill not being there yet and used the phrases "ill-considered changes that diminish the power", "strengthening of centralised power" and "the further exclusion of the citizen".

I would like to give the witnesses as much time as possible to tease out those matters, particularly with regard to the ministerial policy statements or what are called national policy statements in the Bill and those other mechanisms. Will they also pick up on the question about the change to a ten-year development plan and those types of issues?