Professor Peter Clinch:

The data are interesting on that. The extent of dominance varies by country. One of the challenges is we are quite a small region. I agree with the Deputy on the principle. The council itself has supported a national planning framework that can provide a robust infrastructure, employment opportunities and improvement in the social fabric across the country. The challenge there in terms of the population distribution is not something the council has a solution to. With regard to climate change, clearly transport is one of the key areas that is very hard to change given the pattern of our population.

Returning to Dublin, we must be careful to ensure that Dublin remains competitive because we are in this international competition. Dublin has infrastructural problems so we need to be careful about how we do our expenditure and that we do not neglect it. We should also retain and build the infrastructure within the Dublin region as well and we must use planning policies to ensure an improved urban policy as regards Dublin that can deal with issues relating to sprawl.