Committee on Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural & Gaeltacht Affairs to discuss spatial strategy and rural communities

The schedule for tomorrow’s meeting is:

The National Spatial Strategy 2002 to 2020 and its successor within the context of the Committee’s current project on ‘What it takes to sustain a viable rural community’

Session A: 2.30 p.m. [Dr. Brian Hughes]
Session B: 4.30 p.m. [Officials from the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government]

Cathaoirleach of the Committee Peadar Tóibín said: “The National Spatial Strategy is the national planning framework for Ireland for a twenty-year period. Its purpose was to achieve a better balance of social, economic and physical development across Ireland. However, many parts of rural Ireland face ongoing challenges in terms of declining populations, a lack of jobs, a shortage of enterprise and poor infrastructure. As we near the end of the current strategy, it is an opportune time to examine its impact on rural Ireland and consider if it achieved its objective of providing balanced regional development. It is also timely to consider how any successor to the strategy can address the imbalance in the distribution of resources, jobs and enterprise, halt rural decline and help develop and sustain viable rural communities.”

This meeting will start at 2.15pm, tomorrow, Wednesday, 24 May, 2017 in Committee Room 4, Leinster House. Committee proceedings can be viewed live here.

Committee proceedings can also be viewed on the move, through the Houses of the Oireachtas Smartphone App, available for Apple and Android devices.

ENDS/