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

Okay. I ask the Chair to indulge me for a second because this is important. It is not just that there might be some aspect of the development that contravenes the development plan, but it could include zoning, for example. This procedure could, therefore, be used to effectively alter the zoning of the land. Ultimately, you would not be changing the zoning, but you would be allowing a category of development that is not permitted under the existing zoning to proceed, which is kind of a default rezoning without the public participative process around whether that land should be used for this purpose or not. There are aspects of what we will see as national planning policy statements that are to do with areas of policy like density, etc. However, zoning is a different category in the sense the zoning matrix goes through a very comprehensive consultative process, there is a decision-making process and we agree a matrix. I had not for a second thought this would permit a development to proceed that materially contravenes not an aspect of the development plan but the zoning matrix itself. That is quite far-reaching.