Mary O'Rourke (Fianna Fail)

I hope this point will hit home and I intend to speak on it in two weeks at the next meeting of Oireachtas Members in County Westmeath, but I wonder how one teaches manners to a person who has none.

I understand some planners have ideological bents, have gone through the education system at UCD or another university, and have learned that one cannot do A, B, C or D. However, they cannot translate that ideology or professional bias into dealing with people on an everyday basis who want planning permission for their own usage.

The Minister also spoke on sterilisation, which is giving someone planning permission and then making him or her sign a document stating that he or she will never again seek planning permission. I do not know why it has not been challenged, as if it were it would lose. It means a landowner must choose a son, daughter, niece or nephew to get the one planning permission allowed. Sterilisation in this context is a hateful concept that should never have existed and should be banned. It may also create tension between siblings.

The Minister's final two paragraphs are most worthy of praise, but I must point out that there is a spelling mistake in the word "too". He stated:

Finally the point must be made that the critics who challenge the sustainability of housing in rural areas all too often forget or simply overlook the fact that people are the most essential element in creating a countryside that is vibrant and communities that are sustainable.

Of course that is true. How can there be a lively community without people? How can there be lively schools without pupils, or bus services without passengers? Oliver Goldsmith from Longford and Westmeath many years ago wrote, "Ill fares the land, to hastening ill a prey, Where wealth accumulates, and men decay."