Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This will be the most ambitious attempt ever by a Government to plan for the development of the country in the medium to long term. We are planning for Ireland in 2040 when there will be an extra million people and twice as many over the age of 65. We must accommodate that growth, expansion and opportunity through a combination of a new city strategy as well as a very progressive strategy for rural areas and ensuring we maximise the potential of regional development in various parts of the country. It will be a complex and ambitious attempt by Government to plan in a much more long-term way, which will then impact on everything from county and city development plans, industrial policy and investment policy in terms of capital investment. That is what we are attempting to do and it will not be a case of there being one for everyone in the audience. We will try to ensure that every region has the capacity to fulfil its potential in the context of a national plan.

We will launch the plan on 2 February in Maynooth University and we will then have an initial consultation until around Easter. We will try to introduce a pre-draft, as it were, and then have a second consultation process when people can consider and comment on the draft. We will seek to try to finalise it around September to October at which point it will come to the Oireachtas for approval. This will not simply be a Government document and commitment. We will look for the endorsement of the Oireachtas as a whole so that, in effect, we have a national plan in terms of the direction in which we want to take the country between now and 2040, which is why I hope all parties will contribute in a very significant way to putting together the overall plan.

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