Dan Boyle (Green Party)

The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Gormley, has earned a reputation among some county councils for intervening more than his predecessors. The two interventions he has made have been more than justified. The interventions in Mayo County Council and Monaghan County Council raised serious questions about the scale of development that was being proposed which was far higher than that warranted by the population of the area and by the likely population for many decades to come.

One of the more valuable aspects in proposing the changes in the Bill is that the Minister has supplied a list of some of the main urban areas and how they have been proposed to be overdeveloped in years to come. Dundalk, which is one of major urban centres, already has enough zoned land to see it through to 2075. There are examples of urban areas in this country where the zoned property is three times the existing built property and the needs of the population of the areas. That is madness. In fact, it verges on the obscene to abuse a planning process that does not look-----