Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

That was not my intention behind this amendment. I will explain the intention. This information comes into the Department on whatever process - it might be the national planning framework and I think I have something similar in on the policy statements as well. What I meant by the term “respond to” was, as with a development plan process, that the county or the chief executive does not respond to each individual submission but they collate it and produce a written document. It sort of proves that we have had regard to the submissions. I do not, for example, need to say that I will respond to Kieran O’Donnell’s submission on the national planning framework. Rather, we would list out who the submissions have come from the same way that it would be done for a development plan. It provides a little bit of a paper trail. I do want to load any more work on anybody in the Custom House; they have enough on their hands as it is. However, it would be a benefit not to just "have regard to" but to produce a written response albeit without responding to everybody in the manner understood by the Minister of State.

I can see my amendment is not written in the correct manner and would probably add confusion. Could the Minister of State respond to this in the spirit in which it was intended? I accept that, as written, it is probably not clear and applicable.