Michael Finneran (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Fianna Fail)

Amendments Nos. 8, 9 and 10 are not acceptable for the reasons outlined already. Regional planning guidelines are the linchpin between the national spatial strategy, which sets the broader strategic planning framework at central Government level, and local planning, which sets the local context for development planning and management. The amendments provide for regional authorities to participate in a consultation process in the pre-draft development plan preparation, the draft development plan and variations to the development plan, to ensure a consistency between the plans and the regional planning guidelines in force.

Taking account of the points made on Committee Stage and today, I stress that regional planning guidelines represent a combination of top-down and bottom-up content. While regional planning guidelines are required to give effect to the national spatial strategy objectives at regional level, especially in respect of gateway and hub towns, they also reflect specific regional priorities. These include regional economic strategies to address identified strengths and weaknesses within a region, for example, within the mid west; regional flood management, for example, where a river catchment crosses a county boundary or boundaries; and conservation of built and natural heritage within a region, for example, in areas of high scenic value. These regional priorities are identified by the elected members and the regional planning authority officials and are fed into the regional planning guidelines drafting process at an early stage, that is, the publication of the regional planning guidelines issues paper.

The draft regional planning guidelines are prepared on foot of this public consultation and the feedback from the members of the regional authority will eventually provide approval to go to public consultation on the final draft guidelines. On foot of this second round of public consultation, the draft guidelines are modified as necessary and subsequently adopted by the members of the regional authority as the final regional planning guidelines. Therefore, these amendments are not accepted.