Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

This year an unprecedented €4,610 on average will be spent on every kilometre of non-national road. Regional planning guidelines are well advanced in all regions and are expected to be adopted by May. Gateway implementation frameworks have been put in place — for example, the Cork area strategic plan and the Galway planning and transportation study. The Government's decentralisation programme sends a strong signal of our support for more balanced regional development.

In furthering the objective of rural housing policy framework, as set out in the national spatial strategy, the draft guidelines on sustainable rural housing, to which I referred, require local authorities to ensure that any demand for housing in rural areas suffering from population decline is accommodated.

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