Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

That is the point. It is the minimum required information to have a proper review. If we do not take these things into account, we will not fully be able to discharge our environmental, climate change, biodiversity and, indeed, housing needs. That is the point; this information is needed to make a proper plan or have a proper planning framework. To be honest, I would add to the list when I look at it. It is a point I will make later on sections that are not in our amendments but in my view should be. We need to have a housing needs assessment throughout this entire process of the requirement, specifically, for social and affordable housing.

This is the one thing we have learned over the past few years. We have regard for population demographics and we look at what the housing need might be but we do not actually match that properly with need because we do not take into account the ability of people to buy the houses that are often built. We often end up with mismatches between supply and need. I think it should be right across the entire planning process that among the pieces of information that are necessary for national planning frameworks, planning statements and development plans is an assessment of what the social and affordable housing need, specifically, will be whether it is nationally or in a particular local authority area. I want to throw that in now and signal I think these are things that also need to be minimally required pieces of information that are taken into account when developing frameworks, statements or plans.