Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Whoever arranged this debate is doing a disservice. I presume it is no more than that. Second, I understand that next Friday week is the final date for submissions. I take these things seriously because I have seen before with rural development plans how people have ignored the small print when they were published but there has then been outrage when they start to be applied. When one starts reading this, one finds a lot of hidden stuff. A lot of stuff is written in fairly turgid text which makes it very hard to decipher what exactly is meant. I suggest that one thing that could arise from the debate is that the Minister gives us another three or four weeks to put in our submissions and permit internal debate to take place within parties and among Independents. That would be to take it seriously.

It is clear that resources are to be focused in four or five cities. It is also clear that the plan is intended to drive those cities. There is a theory that one can only get economic growth in cities. We need a fundamental debate about whether that is a fact. Is not the whole island of Ireland, in fact, only the size of a city area in the United States of America, for example, where one often gets twin cities with recreational areas complementing them? I wonder, therefore, if our vision is right and whether we recognise how small this little island is. I have found it baffling as a Dublin person to see the great deal of damage done to quality of life in the city by so-called "planners" by the unnecessary concentration of employment, in particular employment the State controls, with all the attendant problems that causes. I am very critical of rural people who keep going around with the béal bocht because in many ways, rural living has a lot of advantages. We do not face congestion and most of us do not have heroin on our doorsteps. There tends to be very good housing. Most of my neighbours at home have a good life. The only problem is that there is not enough gainful employment to give more people a good life in the area. When I look at the city of Dublin, I see it getting rapidly worse. If one does not get in here by 7 a.m., one can forget it until about 11 a.m. Getting out of the city presents the same problem in the evening. It takes an hour and a half. It will take an investment of billions of euro in public transport and a population freeze to resolve that issue.

I look at parts of the city other than those parts of the south side which others look at, notwithstanding that I am very familiar with those too having come from the Donnybrook-Ballsbridge area and having gone to school in Mount Merrion. I look at places like the Oliver Bond flat complex, west Tallaght, Neilstown and Ronanstown and I ask what chance in life do many of the children in these areas have. I know very well the lady who, quite rightly, took a court case against Dublin City Council for over-concentrating homeless centres in a centre she had been using, until it was closed down, to provide pre-school and after-school meals for young children from the Liberties. This lady comes from a flat complex in the Liberties herself and has devoted her life to these young children. I remember doing a presentation of certificates for her to beautiful young kids of 14 years of age. Four or five years later, I met her and she is on the phone to me regularly. We are good friends. I told her that I presumed some of those kids had got caught up in the web of drugs and social problems which bedevil the area and she told me that, unfortunately, that was so. They were the most beautiful kids I ever met. Anyone who tells me that is great living and that it is the kind of Ireland to which we aspire is wrong. That is the part of the city that is ignored by the planners. They would rather dream of the parts of the city that they know and which do not suffer from those problems.

It is tragic that I have only four minutes left. The document says the following about rural planning: "Careful planning is required to manage demand in our most accessible countryside areas around cities and towns, focusing on the functional requirements of rural economies and rural communities and in compliance with EU treaties whereas remoter rural areas should benefit from a more flexible approach, particularly where they help to sustain fragile communities". It then sets out that these areas are defined by a commuter catchment of at least 15% of the relevant city area workforce. It then says that in rural areas of urban influence, one must have a demonstrable economic need to live in a rural area and that the relevant siting criteria for rural housing are the statutory guidelines. It also says that in areas under urban influence, it will continue to be necessary to demonstrate a functional economic requirement for housing need.

Do I have the Minister of State's attention?

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