Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party)
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I thank Mr. Moylan. I am aware that I am taking much more than my allocated time, but I wish to flesh this out some more. Does the AILG view its role as just training and informing its members or would it step in during a situation like that at Salthill, Lucan or wherever and advise its members that the situation is important and they should think carefully about it and perhaps go a certain way? I am despondent. Before being elected to the Dáil, I served on a local authority in Limerick. Almost unanimously, its members argued for an almost universal right to build one-off houses. That has major climate implications. Recently, it made some national headlines when members of the local authority argued that the building regulations should be revised so that every new home would have a chimney stack, which is utterly crazy for anyone trying to build energy-efficient housing stock. It seems we are still a long way off, notwithstanding the good work that the AILG and CCMA do. As we go through the session, we might address how to bring the political system on board. "Hostile" is a strong word, so perhaps I should say that it is not as ready as the official side. We will revert to this matter. Other committee members will probably make similar points.