Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The first three words of section 44(1)(a) are "distributes planned population". Who has planned the population? Where is that coming from? I would like the Minister of State to answer the question of who will plan the population. It is very strange language to state that somebody has planned the population and we will work off that basis. It does not make any sense at all, language wise. Do we plan populations? That is why we want to add a bit at the end of that line. The language in what we are proposing states the strategy would be based on demographic projections, which is probably more real than "planned population". I do not think we plan populations.