Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Absolutely but they cannot vary it. Under the legislation, will the Minister of State clarify for me that elected county and city councillors can request their chief executive to write a report on a proposal to vary the development plan, but if the chief executive does not wish to proceed it cannot happen. That is a joke in terms of local government. We will be electing councillors again next May but we are tying their hands behind their backs. Senator Reilly has this proposal but if I were a councillor living in the administrative area of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown and were I to go to my chief executive with a proposal to vary the county development plan to include at least one of these schemes and were the chief executive of the day to refuse, I would be goosed. That is not right. I fully support and I will vote for this proposal.

The caveats are issues around finance and empowering county councillors. When we leave here, let the local authorities proceed to vary their county development plans to make provision for this. This is an issue that the Minister of State might address because it is an important point. I absolutely support it. Let the development be town based, whether in rural towns and villages but I am not in favour of identifying old sites where, by ducking and dodging planning regulations, a developer can throw up chalets with minimal landscaping that we will be told are wonderful for old people. We cannot and should not go there. I fully support the proposal otherwise.