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

To be clear, the Department supports logical and sequential planning, as well as master plans for areas. The process exists where a local authority can appoint a planner to work with a team of people to develop a master plan that can maximise resources. It is something we certainly encourage. We have no problem corresponding with Kildare County Council in offering that support but we cannot instruct any local authority to develop any parcel of land or assign priorities to individual sites. It is in its own plan to do this so we support such action because we believe in it.

It is something we have discussed with the Office of the Planning Regulator. We have asked the new regulator, Mr. Niall Cussen, to engage proactively with local authorities. He has done it with Meath when it brought forward a development plan. Part of the job is to oversee the implementation of local area plans, which makes sense. I will correspond with Kildare County Council through the Department offering our support and any resources it needs. I will not tell the council what it must do as that is its job but we can certainly offer support and work as best we can.

The focus should now be on all the stakeholders, including the council, local businesses, State agencies and the wider community in implementing the Celbridge local area plan. I confirm that my Department and I will continue to work proactively with Kildare County Council in this regard on infrastructure delivery and sustainable urban development. The train station is there and there are lands that have been identified for development around that as well. We are also ready to work with Kildare in tackling the wider infrastructure delivery challenges to be addressed so as to ensure Celbridge can play a full part in delivering the core strategy of the Kildare county development plan and implement the full range of housing and planning policies available to it.

Certainly, it is something we would encourage and we will work on that as well.

I did not get to mention earlier about my Department's allocation of the rural development fund towards technical assistance in the development of the Kildare County Council Celbridge southern relief road and second Liffey crossing proposal. This demonstrates our commitment to ensure that Celbridge is supported with appropriate infrastructure to accommodate growth and development in the area. I know that Deputy O'Rourke and Deputy Durkan pushed hard to ensure that happened, but it makes for good logical planning as well and I am glad we could do that. It makes sense now.

I repeat that the jigsaw is coming together. What the Deputy is asking for makes total sense with the master plan. I will certainly get our Department to correspond to support that as well.

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