Go raibh maith agat, a Cheann Comhairle.

If we are going to change the format of Leaders' Questions and have an argy-bargy here each morning, let us do that, but we should do it by way of an order of the House; otherwise we should get on with the business in the normal way. I call Deputy Pearse Doherty.

We understand the Taoiseach plans to publish the national planning framework and the capital plan on Friday. This is a hugely-----

Can we have order, please?

-----important document. It sets out the plans and funding for the development of the State over the next 20 years and crucially the document will be placed on a statutory footing. It will supersede county development plans and be materially relevant when it comes to planning applications and appeals to local authorities and to An Bord Pleanála. Sinn Féin supports the idea of a national planning framework. We believe it should be on a statutory basis. We did not support the last draft because it was vague, without clear commitments and it lacked ambition. It did not address the overdevelopment of the greater Dublin region and it did not take a truly all-Ireland approach to social and economic development. It was weak on investment in public transport and measures to tackle climate change. It was silent on spatial distribution of inequality and disadvantage. Unless there are substantial changes, we will not be in a position to support a final draft. We will make our final decision clear when we have time to consider the final document. It now appears the Government intends to deny the House the opportunity to vote on the plan. The legislation underpinning the national planning framework is in the Seanad and has already passed this House. It is very clear on the role of the Oireachtas. Section 20C(8) states that "[t]he Government shall submit the draft of the revised or new National Planning Framework ... for the approval of each House of the Oireachtas before it is published." However, yesterday in response to a parliamentary question by my colleague Deputy Eoin Ó Broin, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy, said a formal vote on the final national planning framework was never envisaged under the legislation. Clearly, that is not the case. The legislation requires a vote of both Houses of the Oireachtas.

Why is the Government now seeking to deny the Oireachtas a vote on the national planning framework despite a clear requirement in the legislation for the Dáil and the Seanad to approve such a document? Is it deliberately publishing the national planning framework on Friday before the final passage of the legislation in order to avoid a vote? How will the national planning framework be placed on a statutory footing if the Government discards the legislation specifically written to put it on a statutory footing? Is the decision not to allow a vote on the NPF part of a secret deal or understanding between the Government and Fianna Fáil to avoid any embarrassment on either side and to keep the confidence and supply agreement from collapsing?

The way legislation works is that it has to pass through both Houses of the Oireachtas and then be signed by the President before it becomes law. Legislation in the Seanad is not the law. There is no requirement that either the national planning framework or the ten-year infrastructure investment plan be subject to a vote of either House.

The Taoiseach continues to show his arrogance.

They are Government decisions as they were in the past and will be Government decisions on Friday. Rather than talking about procedure, we should go back to first principles and ask ourselves why we need Ireland 2040-----

Councils are already involved in excellent projects around the country.

Please, Deputy Byrne.

-----a ten-year infrastructure investment plan or a national planning framework. It is because we need to change what has been done in the past. We need to not repeat the planning mistakes made by others in the past. We need to make sure the trajectory of development in this country changes. We are projecting that there will be an extra million people living in Ireland by 2040. We need to plan for where they will live, work and study and how they will get around. That requires a proper planning framework. This planning framework will provide for a change. It will provide for only 25% of further population growth happening in Dublin and 75% happening in the rest of Ireland. It will provide for 200,000 more people to be living in rural Ireland by 2040. Backing that up and making it possible is investment in transport, broadband, enterprise, tourism, agriculture and everything else. It provides for the other major cities like Limerick, Cork, Galway and Waterford-----

Will the Taoiseach answer the question?

-----and some other major towns to grow at a faster rate than Dublin, which is something that has not happened for decades or centuries. In order to do that we need to support those cities and large towns to unlock development sites particularly at their centre, places like the north quays in Waterford, Tivoli on the docks in Cork-----

I asked the Taoiseach four specific questions.

Will the Taoiseach answer the question?

-----Limerick 2030 and the inner harbour in Galway.

Will the Taoiseach answer the question?

I did answer the question.

The Taoiseach has not answered the question.

It also provides for the ongoing growth in Dublin because Dublin will continue to grow, just not as fast-----

The Taoiseach is waffling.

-----as it did in the past. It will no longer suck in other counties or-----

The Taoiseach is no longer answering the question.

-----spread out into other counties. Dublin needs to grow up rather than out.

The Taoiseach is being caught out.

The Taoiseach had another 51 seconds to answer any four of the questions I put to him. When did he abandon the process that was agreed that the legislation, which has already been approved by the House and is going through the Seanad, would be the legislation that would put this plan on a statutory footing? If he has decided to abandon that and rush the publication of it this week instead of next week when the legislation will be law, how will he put this plan on a statutory footing? Has he entered into discussions with Fianna Fáil to create the circumstances to avoid his own legislation and his own plan to put this on a statutory footing going to a vote in this House? It shows complete contempt for the House for the Taoiseach to decide over a period of two years to introduce legislation specifically designed to put the national planning framework on a statutory footing and the week before it will be signed into law by the President, for him to rush the national planning framework through and publish it. Will the Taoiseach answer any one of those four questions? The reality is there was always a vote envisaged for the national planning framework. That is what it says in the legislation. That is what the majority of the House voted for. That is what section 20C(8) is. This is a political stroke that has consequences for the State and how it deals with planning for the next 20 years. It should not be allowed.

The Deputy's time is up.

If Fianna Fáil wants to sit back and allow this to happen in order to avoid any type of embarrassment so it will able to go on local radio and say it did not agree with it, so be it. The Government should be straight-up and honest with the House. When did the Taoiseach abandon his plans to put the national planning framework on a statutory footing based on this legislation? Now that he has abandoned those plans, how will the plan end up on a statutory basis?

I have straight answers for the Deputy. First, we have no arrangement or understanding with Fianna Fáil on this matter. Second, the legislation the Deputy referred to is not the law. There is no plan to have it signed by the President next week, nor was there ever. We were going to publish this plan before the end of last year. That was the commitment I gave last June. We should have had this published long before now.

The legislation should have been published long before now.

We got held up with other issues. The legislation the Deputy refers to does not say the final plan has to be approved by the Houses of the Oireachtas. What it says is that Government shall submit the draft of the revised or new national planning framework together with the environmental report and appropriate assessment report for the approval of each House of the Oireachtas before it is published.

Yes, before it is published.

The requirement-----

Order, please.

The requirement is that the draft be put before the House; D-R-A-F-T, not the final draft.

For approval.

For approval.

Can we have order for Deputy Howlin, please?

We have not approved the draft. It has to be put on a statutory footing.

Deputy Doherty, please.

The Taoiseach avoided the question about a statutory footing.

Let us try again. The national planning framework has been in development for over three years. There was a rigorous governance roadmap in place. There was a pre-draft national consultation in February and March of last year, which was much vaunted by the current Tánaiste. It was followed by further consultation on the draft framework in September and November. The entire plan was based on legislation. The Planning and Development (Amendment) Bill was published in January 2016 by my colleague, the then Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly. The three of us were at Cabinet at the time and it was envisaged it would be formally voted on in the House before publication.

Absolutely.

It provides a legislative framework for the proposed national planning framework. It passed the Dáil in January and is currently on Committee Stage in the Seanad but something has changed in the past three weeks. The initial focused approach has been abandoned and we now understand that what is about to be launched on Friday is neither the strategic, evidence-based plan for the development of Ireland based on solid data, on which we have been working, nor a Fianna Fáil-type spatial strategy in which every town in the country was notionally a gateway or a hub, which proved to be entirely meaningless. In 2002, there were nine gateways and nine hubs. The aim of that spatial strategy was to prevent the urban sprawl of Dublin but it abjectly failed. Instead, a hybrid of the two is to be launched, where proper planning is to be undermined by the intervention of the Ministers with the sharpest elbows. The Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Kevin Boxer Moran, gets to announce a new capital for the midlands, Sligo and Athlone have been promoted to the champions league of regional capitals, and Letterkenny, Dundalk and Drogheda are to be given some scraps as designated centres of growth. Drogheda was looking for city status as it is the sixth largest urban centre in Ireland. We are to have second-tier towns and, apparently, third-tier towns but those without any voice at Cabinet are to have no-tier towns.

To underscore the sense of drift, the commitment in the plan to have the new planning strategy underpinned by legislative authority also seems to have been dropped. It was to be binding on regional and local government in future planning decisions, and the Government's own Bill requires a draft of the plan to be approved, as the Taoiseach has written. He cannot have it both ways and say it does not require it because it is not yet law but that we will proceed with the law anyway, having ignored it. If the Government allowed Seanad Éireann just a few days more to complete the Bill, the draft plan would require approval of Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann before publication.

Will the Taoiseach publish all the underpinning documentation that supports the final draft when it is published on Friday? Will he tell us what evidential factors were taken into account in the redraft of recent weeks? What statutory footing will the plan which the Taoiseach is announcing on Friday have, and why is the Government rushing it out before the law we have been working on for three years is enacted by these Houses?

This is a classic case of opposition for opposition's sake.

That is unbelievable.

This is shocking.

It is a case of political parties, for political reasons, opposing a plan they have not even seen yet.

We are entitled to see it.

The national planning framework will automatically go on a statutory footing. The draft on the motion happened in November.

It is a different document now.

Irrespective of the legislation, which has not yet passed through these Houses, becoming law or being signed by the President, the national planning framework will automatically go onto a statutory footing as a consequence of the fact that the draft motion was adopted in November.

No, it will not.

Even if the legislation to which Deputies refer was passed, there would still not be a requirement for the final document to be passed by the Oireachtas. The requirement is for the draft to be passed by the Oireachtas and that the Government has regard-----

Scant regard.

-----to any resolution the Oireachtas may adopt. The sad thing about this for people in all parts of Ireland is the extent to which politicians in opposition have wrapped themselves in process and procedure.

It is the law.

It is democracy.

The important thing about project Ireland 2040 is the ambition it creates for Ireland, with 200,000 more people living in rural Ireland by 2040 and Cork, Limerick, Galway and Waterford growing at twice the rate of Dublin.

Answer the question.

Instead of growing out into other cities, Dublin will grow up and there will be a much better quality of life. Backing this up is the €115 billion capital plan for investment in roads, railways, schools, hospitals and health care, as well as a huge package for climate change. This is a real vision for the country of the future and for a much better place than we have now, and the Opposition is terrified of it.

Legislation cannot keep up with the Taoiseach's need to take selfies.

Heckling has reached an intolerable level and Members are bringing the House into disrepute. If they ask the Taoiseach a question, they should at least let him answer.

The Ceann Comhairle is right about this House being brought into disrepute, but it is not by disruptions. It is by the undermining of the basic principles of a functioning parliament.

Hear, hear.

I had discussions with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport last week about how resolutions of this House, which were once binding, are meaningless in this Dáil. If the Government is defeated, it is meaningless. The authority of this House is the same as that of a local debating society but it comes to a new low when not only are motions and resolutions meaningless, the laws we enact are entirely ignored. That undermines democracy and undermines people's faith and trust. Why is the Taoiseach ignoring the three-year programme of successive Governments, which was to ensure that the new national spatial strategy, the blueprint for development in our country for the next ten years, was properly debated in this House before being published? Even at this late stage, will he relent?

The planning framework will be on a statutory footing and that is one of the ways it will be different from the national spatial strategy. It was brought to this House and there was a vote on the draft in November.

It has not been discussed in this House.

Is the Taoiseach referring to the same draft plan?

Legislation has not been passed and, therefore, has not been enacted.

There was no vote on the draft. It was referred to committee.

Please allow the Taoiseach to continue without interruption.

The Taoiseach is misleading the House.

I wish to be associated with the Ceann Comhairle's comments earlier. It is almost impossible to answer questions in this House.

On a point of order-----

One cannot raise a point of order on Leaders' Questions. I will suspend the House if people do not demonstrate some respect for this forum. Members can challenge the Taoiseach all they want, but not in this way.

If there was no vote, it was because it was unopposed. Somebody has to oppose something for a vote to be called in this House.

They were statements.

The Taoiseach is just being cute, now.

Either way, it is not relevant because the legislation to which the Deputies are referring is not the law. It has not been passed by the Dáil and Seanad and has not been enacted by these Houses or signed by the President.

On a point of order, they were statements, not a motion.

One cannot raise a point of order on Leaders' Questions. I ask the Deputy to resume his seat.

It is a point of clarification.

Points of clarification are not allowed either. I call Deputy Shortall.

If the Taoiseach were to clarify matters any further, he would just add to the confusion.