I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
(i) notes:
— the extensive stakeholder and public consultation already undertaken at national, regional and local level since the National Planning Framework preparations first began, following a Government decision in 2014, to ensure early input and buyin at community and citizen level, as well as with key policy-makers and representative organisations;
— the publication of the draft National Planning Framework, entitled 'Ireland 2040 - Our Plan', and its associated environmental reports, for a further final period of public consultation; and
— the high-level objectives of the National Planning Framework to:
— guide the future development of Ireland over the next 20 plus years, taking into account a projected one million increase in our population, an expected 660,000 additional jobs and the need for 550,000 more homes;
— enable people to live closer to where they work, moving away from the current unsustainable trends of increased commuting;
— regenerate rural Ireland by promoting sustainable growth patterns;
— plan for and implement a better distribution of regional growth, in terms of jobs and prosperity;
— transform settlements of all sizes through imaginative urban regeneration initiatives and bring life/jobs back into the heart of villages, towns and cities; and
— co-ordinate delivery of infrastructure and services in tandem with growth, through full alignment between the National Planning Framework, the Capital Investment Plan 2016–2021 and relevant sectoral plans, which will help to manage this growth and
tackle congestion and quality of life issues;
(ii) requests the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government to collate and submit any observations or recommendations during this final consultation period for consideration by the Government, with the approval of the Committee on behalf of both Houses of the Oireachtas for the proposed strategy of the draft National Planning Framework; and
(iii) acknowledges that the broad strategy and approach will be developed further through the Regional Spatial and Economic Strategies to be developed by the Southern, Northern and Western, and Eastern and Midlands Regional Assemblies by the end of 2018."