Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank both Deputies for raising the issue. The Legislature has made provision for ministerial powers to issue statutory planning guidelines. These guidelines need to be implemented in practice, they are not something to which we should only pay lip-service. The Deputy referred to the powers being used in three of five locations but there are 300 plans ongoing and I have had to intervene in very few cases. The Legislature has put in place powers of direction in respect of local planning and policy-making decisions for me to use as necessary. Usually, the local process gets it right but on this occasion it got matters wrong. The focus should now move to implementing the Celbridge local area plan and I wish to confirm again that I will work actively with Kildare County Council on infrastructural delivery and sustainable urban development. In addition, we are ready to work with the council in tackling the wider infrastructural delivery challenges to ensure that Celbridge and Leixlip play their full part in fulfilling the core strategy of the Kildare county development plan using the full range of housing and planning policy initiatives. Decisions will be made on the issues raised this evening in respect of the Leixlip plan in the coming week. This discussion is timely. I cannot go into the details now but I will keep the issues raised here in mind.

I hope the position on St. Catherine's is clear. Many of the people who approached the Deputies have also emailed me but I have not had a chance to respond to them all. I am not sure where these rumours come from but people should understand that I have no intention of putting a road through their park.

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