Jack Chambers (Dublin West, Fianna Fail)

I thank the Deputies for their respective contributions. On Deputy O'Rourke point on the need for much more additional headroom for Meath County Council, the new national planning framework provides additional headroom to local authorities to zone more land to drive increased housing supply. The current baseline position is not at all near what we require to deliver the quantum of housing we in this House all want to see delivered. The need to accelerate the outworking of that will be really important in the period ahead. I take the Deputy's other point on the opportunities around transport-oriented development.

In response to Deputy Farrell, the Department has been very clear around the programme for Government commitment on an earlier view of the national development plan. There is a very strong team in the investment office within the Department that has been ready to conduct this work. We have received submissions from all other Departments around the priorities and the extensive uplift they all want. We have to manage and co-ordinate that. There is always more ambition than there is possibility around what can be allocated, but we are working through that. The Deputy is right that we need to make sure there is a focus on basic infrastructure, particularly water, energy, and, in certain instances in rural Ireland, transport, in order that we can meet the broader industrial opportunities that are there if we invest and accelerate the deliver of that. I appreciate the contributions of the Deputies in respect of this matter.

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