Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I congratulate the Minister, Deputy Ross, on his appointment. It is great to have two residents of County Wicklow at the Cabinet table. I also congratulate Deputy Andrew Doyle on his appointment as Minister of State. Surely, we will have no problems in Wicklow from now on. I remember the Minister, Deputy Ross, attending Fine Gael meetings in my hotel in Glendalough when he was the chosen one for Fine Gael for Wicklow. It is nice to see that, once again, he has become the anointed one.

The Minister will appreciate my concerns and worries. In his time as a public representative in County Wicklow, transport infrastructure was a live issue, and he will be able to directly relate to this crucial element of Wicklow's development. Who writes the rules of the game? Heretofore, it was said that transport for an area was planned by regional and county planners, considering national spatial factors and other factors, and then the National Transport Authority, NTA, delivered the transport infrastructure. From reading the strategy, it is strongly evident that the NTA believes it is setting the rules on spatial planning for regional and county planning. This is a game changer, and destroys the ability of county and regional authorities to develop in a planned and strategic manner.

The Minister has a track record of tackling unaccountable institutions and I hope he will continue in that vein, now that he has the power of a Cabinet position.

The Minister has referred to the staff in Departments as mandarins. I assure him that, on foot of my interaction with those employed by the National Transport Authority, NTA, and the National Roads Authority, NRA, they no longer see themselves as mandarins, they actually think they are gods.

This document clearly does not serve the requirements for the development of the greater Dublin area. It is more suitable as a Dublin metropolitan strategy. The recently published programme for Government commits to rural development and urban regeneration. We need to fulfil both those needs in County Wicklow. This national transport plan destroys the ability to do so.

Wicklow, as the Minister is aware, has always suffered due to its proximity to Dublin and this has become more evident now as we continue to pile 22,000 people, or 42% of the workforce, on to the N11 and N81 daily, causing major implications for traffic. Wicklow needs to achieve a self-sustaining jobs ratio of 65% to 70% of its working population. This ambition feeds the objectives in the draft Wicklow county development plan, which is consistent with regional planning guidelines, is backed by the local economic and community plan and is supported by the Regional Action Plan for Jobs. Again, this Government has set a target of there being 135,000 jobs outside Dublin by 2020.

The sole purpose of the plan is to address the issue of self-sustaining job ratios but the NTA has no regard for this objective and wishes to escalate the problem more by continuing to drive economic growth into the Dublin metropolitan area at the expense of the Wicklow, Kildare and Meath. The NTA states with respect to lands that are not approximate to the existing committed public transport infrastructure that no significant development should happen on those sites and the distance mentioned is 2 km. The Minister knows the geography of Wicklow very well and I ask him what implications this will have on economic development. All of Wicklow's train stations, with the exception of that in Rathdrum, are located on the coast. There is nothing within a 2 km radius of Bray available without developing the Fassaroe site. The proposed extension of the Luas line has been dropped from this flawed strategy and Greystones, Wicklow town and Arklow will all lose out because of the lack of available land. As for west Wicklow, there is no mention of it in the strategy. It has been completely forgotten.

Another example in this context is that of the film industry. It was identified as a unique industry to Wicklow where Wicklow plays a strong role nationally and has two major studios at Bray and Ashford. After significant evidenced-based research and analysis, the future needs of this industry were identified in the appropriate zoning adjoining the current studio in Ashford, which is proposed in the current draft county development plan.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I must ask the Deputy to conclude.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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That is an example of evidenced-based strategic planning that benefits everybody. Who does not want it to happen? The NTA is determined to demolish this plan. One might ask why is that the case? It is to protect the carrying capacity of the N11.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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I thank the Deputy.

Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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I just want to add a final comment.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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No, the Deputy cannot do so. I must be fair to everybody. I call the Minister to respond.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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I thank the Deputy for his kind remarks and congratulations. I am not quite as grateful to him for reminding me of my past, which I have been trying to hide in recent days and for a very long time. I suspect the Fine Gael Party regards it as a chapter in its past of which it is not particularly proud either-----

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent)
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The Minister is back home.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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-----but today we are where we are and we are happy where we are.

Deputy Casey is correct. I find a great deal sympathy with what he said because I am a native of Wicklow. My mother, many of my relations and I still live there. I will address this in a different manner in the future. I will look at it as a native who is very familiar with the problems the Deputy is discussing because of my associations there.

The critical eye with which I have looked upon the agencies to which the Deputy is referring remains but I am certainly not going to say anything rash or foolish in these early days in office. I am simply reading myself in with regard to the NTA and other agencies and what they do and say. I will be meeting representatives from those agencies in the next ten days.

One of the key functions of the NTA, under section 11 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008, is to "undertake strategic planning of transport". In carrying out this function, the Transport Strategy for the Greater Dublin Area 2016-2035 was prepared by the NTA in accordance with the relevant legislative provisions, primarily section 12 of the Dublin Transport Authority Act 2008. The NTA consulted widely in preparing the transport strategy. As well as consulting all local authorities during the preparation of the strategy, the process also included two public consultation phases, one at the commencement of the preparatory work and a second in respect of the details of the draft strategy.

The purpose of the strategy is to provide a framework for the planning and delivery of transport infrastructure and services in the greater Dublin area over the next two decades. The greater Dublin area covers the four Dublin administrative areas as well as Kildare, Meath and Wicklow. In preparing the strategy the NTA is required to have regard to a number of matters. These include: the national spatial strategy; demographic and transport trends across the greater Dublin area; the national plan for capital investment, Building on Recovery: Infrastructure and Capital Investment 2016-2021; local authorities' development plans; and the regional planning guidelines for the region prior to their replacement with a regional spatial and economic strategy.

Of particular significance are the regional planning guidelines for the region. It is a specific requirement of the legislation that the NTA ensures that the transport strategy is consistent with the regional planning guidelines and subsequently with their replacement - the regional spatial and economic strategy. The NTA does not have statutory responsibility for land use planning in the region. The is the role of the local authorities, the regional assemblies and the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government at a national policy level. This is fully recognised and stated in the transport strategy, which also states that the "role of the Strategy is to establish the framework for transport provision necessary to achieve the land use vision set out in the Regional Planning Guidelines".

As required under the legislation, the NTA liaised with the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly during the preparation of the transport strategy. Following consideration of the draft transport strategy by the regional assembly, it provided confirmation that the draft transport strategy was considered with the regional planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area.

Many of the existing planning and transport problems across the greater Dublin area, which have resulted in unsustainable patterns of commuting and increasing congestion, stem from a lack of integration between planning and land use. It is important that a much more integrated approach is developed between these two areas, both now and into the future. Existing legislation seeks to achieve this by requiring, on a statutory basis, consistency between strategic transport planning, in the form of the transport strategy, and regional level land use planning, currently in the form of the regional planning guidelines which will be replaced by a regional spatial and economic strategy.

Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The Minister's time has elapsed. The balance of his reply will be included in the Official Report.

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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That is fine.

Additional Information not given on the floor of the House

The transport strategy does not seek to limit jobs development in Wicklow or to reduce the jobs to population ratio envisaged for the county. For the purposes of the transport strategy, the NTA was required to devise a reasonable forecast of both population and employment, and their distributions, that is likely to pertain in the horizon year, 2035. This forms one of the inputs into the strategic transport model, a tool which assesses the impacts of the strategy's proposals. As such, it is part of a transport planning technique, and has no bearing on the spatial planning policies that may be pursued by the regional assembly or a local authority. However, it is worth noting that the inputs to that strategic transport model do envisage that employment levels in County Wicklow will increase by approximately 38% by 2035, when compared with the last census year for which data was available, which was 2011. If employment levels rise above this, the transport strategy can adapt to that through the provision of additional transport services or the earlier development of the infrastructure provisions. In addition, the strategy is subject to reviews and updates every six years and at each review point adjustments can be made to reflect the relevant circumstances at that time.