Paul McAuliffe (Dublin North-West, Fianna Fail)

They have seen the designs and they want to participate in them.

I will turn to a related conversation regarding ground floor units. In Ballymun, we have a large number of retail units that have yet to be used, which were built under the regeneration. Unfortunately, with regard to the design, the planners insist on ground floor spaces being animated by providing retail. The difficulty with that is that if you have a surplus of retail, it is very difficult then to include retail on the ground floor when you know they are going to lie empty. Second is the cost of that retail, in the same way the Minister is proposing to remove the cost of the cultural space. Essentially, it just gets divided out among the 20 or 30 apartments above it. The same issue arises with retail, and I think the Department needs to go back and have a look at the insistence on retail at ground floor level where there might be an oversupply of retail in the area.