The problem is on the doorstep

CANDIDATES from the main political parties in the Meath and Kildare by-elections should take responsibility for the intolerable commuting times that have emerged as the principal doorstep issue in both of these dysfunctional satellite counties.

Excessive commuting is primarily generated by bad planning purveyed by the main political parties and indulged by successive ministers for the environment with power to stop it.

In short, many of the candidates who sound so innocent on the doorsteps represent the political parties that have caused the problem.

For example, councillors from the main parties on Meath County Council have scandalously failed to implement the strategic planning guidelines for the greater Dublin area.

The High Court judgement on proceedings taken by Tony McEvoy and I against the current Meath county development plan simply laid out what has happened.

It found that "overall, the Meath plan recommends that land sufficient to accommodate an enormous population increase should be zoned for residential purposes in the period up to 2011, notwithstanding the fact that the guidelines ... envisage a much more modest population increase during that period."

It also held "that most land zoning decisions ... appear to have been influenced more by pressure and lobbying exerted by interested parties (such as local landowners) than by regional or other planning considerations," and that the "nature and extent of the consideration given by the elected members to the guidelines in the zoning of land for residential purposes gives rise to concern (and indeed unease)."

Michael Smith

6 Ormond Quay Upper

Dublin 7