Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Ceann Comhairle)
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The third item is in the name of Deputy Lisa Chambers, who has sought its deferral, so we will move to the fourth item in the name of Deputy Tóibín, who wishes to discuss the impact of the population cap on County Meath. I assume it is not the one-child policy that is proposed for County Meath.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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Well, it is nearly as bad. It is a serious issue. Over the past number of years, I have taken a well-worn path into this Chamber to discuss investment in County Meath. Many people are unaware of this issue but Meath is an outlier when it comes to investment and resources. Meath is unique because out of 28 local authorities in this State, it is at the very bottom of the investment lists per capita in most categories. Meath County Council is the lowest funded county council in the State. It has the lowest number of staff per capita and the lowest amount of expenditure per capita in the State. Meath gets about 61% of the national average investment per council. It gets 45% of the national average investment in housing and 43% of the national average with regards to amenities, etc. Meath has about 60% of the investment with regards to water development. Counties Meath and Louth are at the bottom with regard to mental health services and Meath has the lowest number of gardaí per capita in the State. This morning, more people in Meath left the county to go to work than work in the county. This happens nowhere else in the State yet Navan is the biggest town in the country without a rail line. The State wants us to be commuters but it will not give us the technology or infrastructure to do that. This has a radical effect on the everyday living standards of people in Meath.

We in Meath have started to live with the realisation that we do not get the clippings of tin off the Cabinet table with regard to investment but it now turns out that we have a Government and a system that actively work against us with regard to investment. The working draft of the national planning framework and the regional spatial and economic strategy for the eastern and midland region seek to cap the population of Meath. It is stated quite clearly that only 8,600 houses should be built for the entire county of Meath between now and 2026.

To put this in context, there are 5,600 existing planning permissions for units that are not yet built. Therefore, if the Government's plan goes ahead, only 2,600 new planning applications could be issued in that period.

We have a cap of 8,600 houses. On the other side of the equation, we have nearly 4,000 people on the housing waiting list and many more, unfortunately, will join them on that waiting list in the next ten years. It is possible that, for social housing alone, the capacity being offered by the plan could be exhausted. Houses in Meath are as rare as hen's teeth at the moment. The outcome of putting a cap on this will simply leave thousands of Meath families on the housing waiting list forever. Anybody who has studied any bit of economics at junior or leaving certificate level will know that if one puts a cap on supply while there is increasing demand in the county, it can only have one result, which will be the acceleration of rents and house prices in Meath over that period. To tell people who are currently put to the pin of their collar and paying maybe 60% of their disposable income on housing that we are going to accelerate house prices in Meath is shocking.

What I want the Government to say is that absolutely no cap or targets will be put in place with regard to population growth in Meath. I support spatial development and I have argued strongly in this Chamber for proper spatial development that is powered and energised by infrastructural development elsewhere and not by reducing the opportunities for counties such as my own.

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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I thank Deputy Tóibín for raising the matter, which I am taking on behalf of the Minister, Deputy Murphy, and for providing me with the opportunity to discuss the population growth projections for County Meath as set out under the national planning framework.

The suggestion being put forward that there is a "cap" on housing delivery in County Meath is erroneous and misleading, but it is also disappointing given that, instead of a focus on more and more commuter-driven development, future planning for the county needs to take account of past mistakes. We are all familiar with recent and historic trends when the county saw very high levels of housing development without the matching growth in local employment opportunities and provision of essential amenities and community services for fast growing communities. It seems as if those putting about the notion of a "cap" are trying to use the current housing issues to create an opportunity to go back to old and failed models of "zone and build" that, while rewarding landowners and developers with high financial returns from speculative housing development, do not tackle the issues facing existing communities in Meath from previous suburban expansion, such as congested roads, pressure on schools, limited amenities and a general sense of housing being provided ahead of jobs and services, not the other way around.

The strategic planning policies outlined in Project Ireland 2040 are aimed at a different path to what we saw in the Celtic tiger era. That is clearly what people wanted, as evidenced during the public consultation: self-sustaining jobs and services-centred planning and development, not just housing growth for the sake of housing growth. Nevertheless, it is vital that we plan for future growth, so a very detailed examination of estimates of housing, employment and population changes in an overall national and regional context was undertaken by the ESRI for my Department. In addition, development of a draft regional spatial and economic strategy for the Dublin, midlands and east region is based on these projected national population growth targets, which were communicated by my Department to all local and regional authorities in early July.

The facts are that the current guide for planning for future population growth in County Meath out to 2026 is for an additional 26,000 people above 2016 levels, equivalent to adding the entire combined populations of Ashbourne, Kells and Trim to the county in a ten-year period. How this very high level of growth is to be planned for on the ground is rightly a matter for Meath County Council to determine as part of its county development plan, which must be reviewed after the regional spatial and economic strategy has been finalised. The county development plan review process must also ensure there is capacity for up to a further 25% of the projected population target to 2026, or an additional 6,500 people, as development does not simply stop in 2026. This means that the next Meath county development plan will need to set out how the county can accommodate an additional 32,500 people to 2026. In this context, far from any cap on growth, there is plenty of scope to ensure the continued growth and development of Meath but on a sustainable basis that is about a balanced work-life based approach, not just the commuter-based development that was so prevalent in Meath and other parts of the country in the past.

Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Sinn Fein)
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I take the Minister of State's point with regard to jobs. Meath is a commuter county and comparator counties are Louth, Kildare and Wicklow, all of which get far more jobs from the IDA per capita than Meath. I too would pair the population with jobs if I was in the Government's position.

Let us look at the population statistics. Between 2006 and 2016 the population of Navan increased by 5,322 persons, which is roughly 532 per year, despite the long period of stagnant growth during those years. The draft plan which the national framework document seems to be considering would only allow for some 376 more people to live in Navan every year. To do that, we are talking about de-zoning some 205 hectares of land that has been zoned for housing development in that area. This would be detrimental to every club, every school and every business in the area. Any enterprise of any size would never consider Meath again because it would realise it cannot get new workers to live in Meath because of this target or cap.

Investment has been withheld from Meath for generations, for example, investment in the rail line. We were promised by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael for years that the rail line would be built yet it has never happened. The chances of getting the rail line in the future would be radically reduced if this target or cap were in place.

I note the Minister of State says these are targets. However, targets in a plan such as the national framework document are not fuzzy figures to be thrown around and discussed. People are employed to pursue targets. Their jobs are to implement targets. If the Minister of State talks to any of the officials in the authorities in this area, they will say they will pursue these targets because it is their job to do so. Indeed, it will be a failure in their eyes if they do not achieve these targets. Why have a national development plan with targets and then say the targets are not really that important to the whole process? If that is the case, the national development plan is a ball of smoke in the first place. Either the targets are real and the national development plan is real, or they are not.

John Paul Phelan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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The point is that the targets are real but they are not caps. I believe there is not that much difference between what the Government is proposing and what the Deputy is seeking. From the 1990s the population of County Meath doubled and much of that was in the towns and villages, particularly in the east of the county, but in some measure throughout the county. It was that kind of "zone and build" policy which was national policy at the time.

The Government wants to ensure the development of Meath and other places into the future is underpinned by sustainability. What I mean by that is keeping people living close to their work, their education and other amenities they wish to avail of. That is why the central plank of the national planning framework is around rebalancing development into the next ten and even 30 years. The huge population increases we have seen in Dublin and the area centred on Dublin in the last 30 years are unsustainable for the future. Part of that is the national planning framework itself but I want to emphasise that, despite the figures mentioned, none of this is set in stone. There is an ongoing process between all local authorities, regional authorities and the Department as to how the national planning framework will actually play out in terms of development in every region across the country. However, the central point is to ensure that more than half of the development of the country in the next 30 years is outside of Dublin. There is no question, and I do not want anyone to think there is, of de-zoning tracts of land in Navan. That is not on anyone's agenda.

I emphasise before I finish that my colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy English, hoped to make it to the debate, but he had a commitment to attend a housing meeting earlier. I was on the phone to him and he was not in a position to respond directly.