Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

Reference was made to the capital development plan and also the national planning framework, and its review. The council's report had a lot to say about capital investment and Professor Clinch also remarked that on the value of pre-crash capital investment towards assisting the recovery, our ability to repeat that particular investment is restrained because of fiscal rules. It is very restrained in a way that it was not previously. Apart from increasing taxation, what other ways would Professor Clinch see to address that? The council has also highlighted that we need to do more about climate change, reducing and meeting our carbon reduction targets. To link that in with the national planning framework, one of the points the council has highlighted is switching people to public transport in terms of higher density population locations, but that is not the way we do things. I suppose we must come back to Professor Clinch's last remarks about the practical reality of governance. We have a very disbursed regional structure. The national planning framework is a chance to take the burden out of Dublin, where the economic growth of 40% of our economy, high rent, high infrastructure costs and start developing opportunities around it. Should we link the capital plan review, the national planning framework and carbon reduction efforts together as well as making them all Brexit-proof?