Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I support the general point that we need to achieve diversity in regional authorities without creating unwieldy large assemblies. A bias would not be desirable either - I do not mean political bias or political parties. I made the point on Committee Stage that diversity is critical if we are to avoid the mistakes we made in the past. A key issue to be dealt with by the regional assemblies is the issue of land use planning. We do not want to repeat ghost estates and building on flood plains and inappropriately zoned land. Those mistakes were part of the reason this country is in the position it finds itself. We cannot repeat those mistakes. A diversity of opinion in the regional assemblies is important. I referred as an example to the mid-east region and the Dublin regional authorities which had joint responsibility for devising the regional strategies following on from the national spatial strategy. In my view to some extent the strategy made a positive change in the culture in our local authority. We need to get the right numbers and diversity in the regional assemblies.

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