Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I acknowledge that I have spoken to the Minister of State on several occasions about this matter. Celbridge has some 6,500 houses at the moment. There are an additional 3,500 houses proposed over the next six years. This is a nearly 70% increase. The site we are discussing today is a very small site at the centre that is historical and critical to the heritage of the town. It is the reason Celbridge is a heritage town and I question whether the national planning framework is being undermined by some of what is being proposed. Kildare, for example, has a population of 220,000 people with 80,000 extra people proposed over the next six years. We are not talking about a minor increase. Like the Minister of State's own county, Kildare is one of the areas that has done the heavy lifting in respect of residential development over the years. People engage with this process in their thousands. They do it every time. They did it with planning applications in the past and they have engaged at every stage of this process. They have the right to make their views known, but they do not feel that their views were listened to and they feel that their councillors were disrespected in the view they took. This is not just any site; this is an historically important site with an 18th century designed landscaped that is a reference point for Castletown House, of which people are rightly very proud.

The Minister of State spoke of commercial viability. That door is well closed. There is a huge 24-hour Tesco, a Lidl, an Aldi and a big SuperValu all located outside the town core. As these stores developed, the town's core businesses started to deplete. That is well gone and is not going to come back. I really wonder what the Minister of State was looking at.

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