Ms Alma Walsh:

Going back to the 2018 national planning framework that was published and the principle of balanced regional development, it is provided for within the Planning and Development Act as well in terms of the legislative provision to guide plan-making in particular.

Publishing the NPF in 2018 and retaining this approach to balanced regional development in this revised version is about addressing the imbalance in how and, in particular, where development has been taking place, with a concentration in Dublin and the mid-east area. The balanced regional development piece is to address that concentration to ensure that other parts of the country, particularly those areas in the other two regions and the cities within the Southern Regional Assembly area and the city within the Northern and Western Regional Assembly area, also grow to their potential and offer an alternative and rebalance of the distribution of growth.