At the launch of the national planning framework, the Taoiseach gave a very good speech on the need for us to invest in twenty-first century solutions for this country. It is a real concern in this House. Earlier this month IBEC said that what we need to do first is invest in finishing off twentieth-century solutions. It presented its connection plan this morning which involves thousands of new motorways and dual carriageways everywhere. It is the least sustainable plan I have ever seen. It beggars belief that IBEC is coming out with it. National planning framework officials came to the House last week and said our biggest problem has been sprawl and that we have to go back into the centres. That is the centre of the plan. The plan is about asking people for their views and listening. Will the Government give any direction to back up those officials and tell IBEC to wake up and that we have to bring life back into the villages, the centres of towns and the centres of our cities rather than continuing the sprawl, which the IBEC plan would almost guarantee?

I agree with this. I launched this plan with the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government in Maynooth recently. We also have the rural action plan. I will ask the Minister, Deputy Coveney, to comment on the Deputy's specific question.

As the Deputy knows, the Government puts a lot of store on this new developing national plan. The technical term is the national planning framework. We attempted to do this only once before as a country with the national spatial strategy which did not work out too well. We are in a consultation process at the moment. I have already been to Sligo. I was in Ballymun yesterday. I will be in Cork on Friday and we are going to Waterford, Athlone and Galway. There will also be a second meeting in Dublin. We will try to build consensus across political parties as well as across multiple stakeholders that have an interest in what Ireland should look like in ten and 20 years' time. Sustainability and climate change will be a big part of that as will how people move around, where they live and, in particular, urban environments that have not been developed appropriately over the past 20 years. The Deputy will have an opportunity to input into that in a very direct way.