Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

In an area such as mine where there is rapid growth in development, many of the areas are not in charge and, as a result, there will be no mobility hub, electric vehicle, EV, chargers, ramps or cycling lanes. This is a serious problem if we are trying to ensure newly emerging communities will start out in a sustainable environment. We could probably say these planning permissions should have anticipated the changes we are facing but they did not, and the Minister needs to think about how we can address that issue.

I was a bit disturbed to hear that if An Bord Pleanála cannot deal with BusConnects, there will be an arbitrary reallocation of road space without any planning process. That is a dangerous thing to do. We need to fix the planning process to get sustainable public transport infrastructure into place. If we try to make decisions by administrative fiat, we will run into legal challenges and all sorts of stuff. I am worried about that direction of travel.