Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent)
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420. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government to provide the definition and conceptualisation of balanced regional development currently used to interpret and deliver the Programme for Government. [42814/24]

Darragh O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Fianna Fail)
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The National Planning Framework (NPF), 2018 is the long-term, 20-year strategy for strategic planning and sustainable development of our urban and rural areas to 2040, with the core objectives of securing balanced regional development and a sustainable ‘compact growth’ approach to the form and pattern of future development. The objective of the NPF in relation to balanced regional development is defined in the Planning and Development Act, 2000 (as amended) in section 20B in the context of ‘maximising the potential’ of regions, as follows:

“to secure balanced regional development by maximising the potential of the regions, and support proper planning and sustainable development.”

The Programme for Government (‘Our Shared Future’) identifies the centrality of the National Planning Framework to the implementation of more balanced regional development and aims to “ensure that policy and planning across Government, in relation to the future provision of services and infrastructure, will be fully aligned with the National Planning Framework to ensure balanced and sustainable development in Ireland over the next 20 years”.

The NPF, together with the National Development Plan 2021 (NDP), combine to form Project Ireland 2040, the overarching planning and investment framework for the social, economic and cultural development of Ireland. The funding of infrastructure projects, with specific public investment projects to support and promote a greater balance in regional development identified, is facilitated by the NDP.

A cornerstone policy of the National Planning Framework (NPF) is the achievement of a greater regional balance in population and employment growth. The goal is to see a roughly 50:50 distribution of growth between the Eastern and Midland region, and the respective Southern, and Northern and Western Regions.

The NPF informs a spatial hierarchy of plans that cascade to regional and local levels, through the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies (RSESs) for the Eastern and Midland Regional Assembly area and the city and county development plans for each of the 31 local authorities. Since the adoption of the NPF in 2018, the regional strategies and the majority of local authority development plans have been reviewed and updated to align with the NPF.