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

I will make an observation and then put two questions to Mr. Hogan. I have a lot of sympathy with Deputy Leddin’s point. My colleagues from the regional cities will be making exactly the same point. I want to add an additional observation for Mr. Hogan and his team and it builds on my questions to the Climate Change Advisory Council. It is that there is also an issue about where the growth is within the city. One of the big concerns I have about Dublin, and I represent the suburbs, is that we are seeing very little meaningful residential growth within the urban core of the city and that is causing all sorts of problems, whether social, economic or environmental. For me, it is not just that we get balanced regional growth, about which Deputy Leddin is correct, but we also need to make sure it is compact growth in the truest sense of the term.

I am almost talking against my constituency by arguing for greater levels of development in the urban core of Dublin. I am sure there is nothing in what I am saying that Mr. Hogan disagrees with, and a lot of this has more to do with implementation than with what is in the planning framework. However, in the amendments, we need to have some way of differentiating even the grades of compact growth. Adamstown and Clondalkin, which I represent, are not the same as the urban core of Dublin between the canals. We need to see far greater residential development in those areas. One of the things the core has that we are struggling with in Dublin Mid-West is the other amenities. For example, there is significant residential growth in Dublin Mid-West but the vital public services that should be going in there in parallel are not going in, and the significant lag in school places, GPs and all of those additional journeys that Mr. Morgenroth mentioned are causing real problems. People in Adamstown are travelling to Meath and Kildare to get GP services, for example, and their children cannot get schools within the general election constituency. Again, that is not something the NPF, as a document, can fix and it has to do with the implementation and alignment of capital programmes. However, if there was a way of grading or almost heat-mapping the compact growth, as is done in the census, it would be useful. I just say that as an observation.

I have two questions for Mr. Hogan. Can he give a summary of the areas of the amendments? Obviously, we eagerly await their publication. At this stage, can he give us headline summaries of the amendments that the Department is working on, given there was an amendment timeline? As Mr. Hogan knows, I was pleasantly surprised when he told us at the last meeting that there would be an Oireachtas vote on the NPF because that is the right approach. However, if the relevant section of the new Planning and Development Act that removes that requirement is enacted between now and whenever the next government is formed, will it be that new section of the Act that governs the decision of the Government or will it still have the option of proceeding as was set out by this Government? Ultimately, it is a political question. I have a strong view that given the importance of this document having the democratic legitimacy of an Oireachtas vote, it is politically, but also probably legally, a much stronger position to be in.

Will Mr. Hogan clarify where it leaves an Oireachtas vote if that section is enacted at some stage early next year?