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

This is on a related matter. In January of this year, the committee received a submission from the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly. It and other assemblies were formally involved in pre-legislative scrutiny. It made the case for the full reinstatement of what is currently section 25A of the Planning and Development Act, which in part relates to the Chair's amendment. In fact, not only did it make a very strong case for a two-year period, it also spoke of a requirement for the local authorities and the Government Departments to be involved in setting out the progress, both for the spatial and economic strategy and Project Ireland 2040.

Given that the very people who develop these strategies were making a case for the existing provisions of the legislation to be fully reinserted into the Act, I would like to press a little further. Will the Minister of State not only answer the question about the logic of it moving to four years but also address why the original section 25A was not retained in totality? Obviously, there has been a strong argument from at least one of the regional assemblies to do so.