Noel Dempsey (Meath West, Fianna Fail)

I have touched on many points and noted what the Deputies said. The procedure is that local authorities in an area must first decide if they want to take a particular route and make this known to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, and me. A decision would then be made. A consequence of authorities being included in the GDA might be that they would have to leave the BMW region to ensure coherence in the regional planning guidelines. Nothing more formal than a decision by the local authority and an application would be required.

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