Jerry Buttimer (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have huge understanding of where the Senator is coming from on this. It is critical we give local authorities and their members, irrespective of our constituencies or none, a key role in this. A point we should also dwell upon concerns the creation of the offices of the Land Development Agency in Cork, Dublin and Limerick, including how they are populated and their role and remit, in keeping with what Senator Boyhan has said. The Senator could have included in his amendment the whole thing around the office of the Land Development Agency. It brings into question the role of the strategic policy committees of our local authorities, which have specialised members in association with the elected members.

A mapping exercise was carried out by the Land Development Agency on public lands. In the context of this section and its performance under the Act, surely a synergy must be developed with the local authority committee of housing or the local authority, whether Cork City Council or Kerry County Council, to ensure there is transparency rather than a veil of secrecy, as Senator Boyhan has called for and I agree with him. It is critical that there is confidence in the Land Development Agency and how it delivers.

Senators Boyhan and Higgins referenced Iris Oifigiúiland the national newspaper. I ask Senator Boyhan if we have to put the planning notice in a national newspaper and on the website. The types of newspapers available are changing. Meanwhile, many people are looking to varying sites for information and the website is not sufficient. We need to embrace other possibilities in that regard.

We have seen the mapping exercise carried out. We need to see action on that. I would like to see a greater role for the strategic policy committees of councils in the overarching direction and delivery of policy and in working on the futuristic vision of a city or county. In Cork, we have had the Cork land use and transportation study, LUTS, in the 1960s and 1970s, the Cork area strategic plan and now metropolitan Cork. We saw developments last week with BusConnects, which is not relevant to this but is part of the overarching policy. In the context of the Land Development Agency, I am afraid we have seen Government give an inordinate amount of money to the development of the Cork docklands and that will be lost in the delivery.