Marc Ó Cathasaigh (Waterford, Green Party)
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I thank both organisations for their presentations. I am fascinated by the idea of urban design and how it shapes our interaction with our public spaces in a way that we often do not even realise. That is the case both with the places we decide to dwell and spend time and the places we walk through quickly. I have a basic parameter. I have a six-year-old and he is a bit of a live wire. I often judge the quality of my public realm by how tightly I have to hang on to him. Waterford city centre is one of the few urban environments where I can let go of my child's hand and not worry about it.

Coming at it from a neurotypical perspective, a lot of our urban design is not even designed around maximising my experience within that environment. It is about exploiting my tolerances within that environment. It is about what I can put up with as a neurotypical person in terms of visual and auditory clutter. It relies on the fact that I can screen out many of those inputs, be it noise or visual clutter, and still operate within that environment. I do not think it is designed to maximise my experience of the environment. I feel strongly that universal design, not just in private areas, but applied across our public realm, will not only improve the experience of neurodivergent people or those with a physical disability but also will improve the experience of everybody within that environment. I am a strong believer in it.

My first question is a basic one. Are the witnesses talking to each other enough? Are they talking one to another? Are they making sure that the type of research being done in the NDA is transferring into what our planners are putting in? I think they spoke about incorporating neurodiversity at a strategic plan-making level. Is the NDA's work informing the Irish Planning Institute's work well enough? I was always conscious of it as a teacher. I emerged in 2005, and that could have been the last time I upgraded my teaching skills had I chosen to do that. We are all the products of our education. Is the Irish Planning Institute's CPD taking account of the work being done by the NDA? Is the communication there in the way it should be?