Ciarán Cuffe (Dún Laoghaire, Green Party)

One may disagree with that, but I certainly believe that the mayor led the initiative to improve the quality of water in Galway at a challenging time.

Senator O'Reilly spoke of little boxes on the hillside made of ticky-tacky. There is a green one and a pink one, and a blue one and a yellow one, and they all are made of ticky-tacky and they all look just the same. That resonates with myself. We agree on that issue.

The problem for far too long in Ireland is that the choices in housing have been limited. They have been limited to a shoe-box apartment in the city, a semi-detached house or a single house in the countryside. We need to provide a greater menu of choices for people in where they live, improve the choice, and give people more possibilities of where and how they live. Good design is crucial to all of that.

We have issued guidelines on design. We have much more in the pipeline on local area plans. That will deal with the issue of everyone living in ticky-tacky houses, playing on the golf course and drinking their martinis dry, which reflected the one-size-fits-all problem which has been a significant legacy of the past 30 years of suburbia. Looking ahead, we want to give people more choice and that might lead to fewer people reaching for the martini glasses.

On the issue of the T-test, we need to apply the most modern technology to how we assess applications. There is a concern out there that this will stop people building where they should build, but it is important to look at the science. There are new technologies and we should use them. Nonetheless, we must take into account flooding issues-----