Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support the amendment. I would like to provide a practical insight into its benefit. During the Ballymun regeneration process, a large number of areas were not developed for several years because of the desire to have owner-occupied houses on those sites - a very different time from now. Community gardens sprung up on many of those parcels of land. When it came to drafting the local area plan, we wanted to accommodate those in some way within the large overall bank of land that was there. It would have been very helpful to have a definition such as this that the LAP could rely on regarding what a community garden was. It would be useful because when community gardens go well, they go very well, but when they go wrong, they can also become the exclusive reserve of a very small number of people. I have not experienced that in my constituency, but I know it has happened elsewhere. If a garden is not for the use of the community as defined in Deputy Ó Cathasaigh's amendment, it could give the local authority additional leverage in order to ensure the community gets the advantage of it. There is merit in the amendment. I accept that the Minister of State may need to review it on Report Stage, but I ask him to consider it strongly.