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

Amendment No. 302 seeks to make a small but important change to section 40(2). The current text provides: "Not later than 8 years after the making of each development plan for the functional area of a planning authority, the planning authority shall commence a review of the development plan..." It might seem that reducing the time to seven years is not a big change, but there was quite a lot of discussion during pre-legislative scrutiny, especially with the local government sector and elected members who were keen to ensure councillors would not lose out on the opportunity to be part of either a development plan or a development plan review. This small change would ensure that no councillor is left out. It should allow us to give all councillors a role by ensuring that if they miss the original plan, they can at least participate in the review or the initiation of the review. If there is a better suggestion for an alternative number of years, I am open to it. However, eight years is too long.