Brian Leddin (Limerick City, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Everything I have heard so far confirms my belief that this is really a demand-led strategy rather than an overall vision for the country. We are setting ourselves up for a very unfortunate political legacy, if it goes through as is. I look forward to the Ministers answering to that in September when they come in. This Government has done fantastic work. However, I do not see that good work reflected in this document. As I said, it is not setting the vision for the country. Essentially, it is a plan for growth of Dublin and the GDA.

Interestingly, the Cathaoirleach mentioned the climate targets and the renewable energy targets. It is quite disproportionate. The regions will have the vast majority of the renewable energy development, as per this plan. We are walking into a difficult political situation because essentially the power that is produced by that renewable energy will largely flow to the capital and there is a strong political argument for the growth to happen far more substantially in the regions because it is the regions that will host the renewable energy development. That is an important point to make and we should be thinking about it. We are walking into a situation here where essentially we are adding fuel to the growth of Dublin and the regions of Ireland will be providing the resources for that growth.

I am concerned about the NESC definition that is used for transport-oriented development. There is a number of definitions that NESC uses. That should be looked at and a submission should be made in that regard.

I see no reference in the document to car dependency. It is incredible that our apex document for planning in this country does not include one mention of car dependency. Car dependency is driven, if the committee will pardon the pun, by bad planning. There is no attempt in the timeframe of the strategy, if one can call it that as it is not worth the name, to address car dependency and that should be looked at as we seek to agree a final review of the national planning framework.

In Table 2.1, on page 22, the targets for compact growth are set out for the eastern and midlands region, for the southern region, and for the northern and western region, as "30% all new housing elsewhere, within existing urban footprints". That means 70% of the housing not in cities will be either on greenfield sites at the edge of urban settlements or in one-off developments. Is that not what that says?