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

I return to the issue of compact growth and will pick up where Mr. Hussey left off. It seems part of the problem is the definition within the NPF. Looking, for example, at recent residential development in the greater Dublin area, GDA, one could argue that the vast majority of it is compact growth as per the definitions in the NPF. However, most of it is not really compact growth in terms of the urban core of the cities in which people are living and working. I represent Dublin Mid-West, which is on the other side of the M50. While the densities of developments in Adamstown and Clonburris are very welcome and they are compact, not everybody who is buying there, or buying further afield in Meath and Kildare, lives in those compact growth settlements. That probably relates in some ways to the transport emissions issue Mr. Hussey raised earlier.

From the point of view of the advisory council, are both the definitions of and targets for compact growth clear enough? Would it not be better to try to define much more fully what we mean, such that when we say we want compact growth, we are getting genuine compact growth? Is there some other way of measuring it other than measuring it within built-up areas? We had a very good conversation in a meeting with representatives of the Central Statistics Office, CSO, in which we considered that if all development is at the edge of built-up areas, that is not really compact growth because it is contributing to suburban sprawl. From the point of view of the CCAC, could we do better? Is the council looking forward to the amendments to the NPF Mr. Hogan mentioned to see whether these are areas that could be strengthened? We are saying that 75% of new residential development meets the existing compact growth definitions but when we look at the very good mapping by the Chartered Institute of Building of everything built in the past five or six years in Dublin and the GDA, it shows it is all still suburban sprawl, albeit at the edges of existing settlements. Do the council witnesses have a view on how we can improve that?