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

It is open to the Kildare local authority to make another application in the future. We have had engagement about why it did not succeed in the first instance. Four out of seven projects did. The Deputy stated that it got four out of seven priorities, which is quite good compared to other counties. I am trying to match good quality planning with infrastructure under this fund. The whole-of-Government approach in the context of Project Ireland 2040 is that we should invest in infrastructure because this will encourage greater investment and quality of life in many areas. It will also make up for a lack of infrastructure in the past due to bad planning, where we had thousands of houses built in many counties, but no infrastructure provided to service them. As we roll out the next round of development and recognise that there will probably be an additional 500,000 houses built over the next 20 to 25 years, we want to do that in a planned and co-ordinated way. We have asked all the regions that use the national development plan to put in place three regional plans and to bring that down to county level too.

There were concerns about the different population growth targets in the regions which I think have been addressed since the draft. People are very happy in Kildare, Meath and Wicklow that the right population targets in place. They will encourage more housing construction along with job creation and such. It will not be as it was in the past, with houses with no jobs. That will change and that will mean there will have to be investment in infrastructure in towns in a timely manner. We asked that we would focus on the county town concept in every local authority. Newbridge is not the county town of Kildare. My understanding is that is probably why it was not named the county town. The Deputy makes a good argument that all towns should be considered. As the regional plans are taken down to a county town level, there will naturally be a plan for each town that will set out its strategy for the years ahead. We recognise Kildare as a county that will grow. It will need more houses. That needs to happen in a planned, co-ordinated way.

The Deputy and I have both seen many cases where places have been allowed to grow without the proper infrastructure, whether services, investment in education, hospitals, roads or whatever it takes. Very often, transport infrastructure is a key part of that too. We are determined that, if we work with local authorities properly, the right resources will be allocated to the areas that need it to deal with development for the past and also for the future, which we are trying to do with the long-term thinking in Project Ireland 2040. There will be plenty of opportunity to deal with this in the context of the applications. If everyone does their homework right, I have no doubt that there is every reason there could be a successful application in the future. We do not judge them. It is not me or the Minister, there is an independent body with all the expertise to make the call on whether applications are successful.

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