Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Does Deputy Leddin wish to come back in? No. I am supposed to take a break after two hours but I have one or two more questions to ask. Does anybody wish to take a break or will I just continue? I will continue. I will ask about national objectives 75 and 76 in the draft I have. They relate to renewable energy targets. This is one of the very positive parts of this NPF. There is a lot of good stuff in the NPF, notwithstanding what Deputy Leddin said about regional balance. I do not think we are achieving regional balance. We are continuing on the same route and may end up back here in five or ten years doing another national planning framework and saying we did not achieve it. I do not think we are going to achieve it with this plan. My question on objectives 75 and 76 is similar to the one I asked about housing figures earlier on. It is on page 135 of the draft. Objective 75 states that each regional assembly must identify and allocate a level of renewable energy within its region. Will they then allocate that to each county or is it up to the counties? How does that process work?