Cabinet Committees Dail Éireann — 2021-11-03 ============================================================ John Lahart (FF), Dublin South-West I thank the Taoiseach and echo the words of my colleague, Deputy Christopher O'Sullivan, in respect of the Taoiseach's representation of the country at COP26. My question has a Dublin perspective. Covid has exposed the capital city as having been overdependent, and having grown utterly reliant, on events, hospitality and tourism, which are the oxygen that allows the city to breathe. When the Covid tide went out, many businesses were clearly exposed above the waterline. One only has to walk a couple of hundred metres in the city to see the number of retail outlets that have shut. Thankfully, some of them are opening with different businesses and that is very welcome. While An Bord Pleanála sees fit under the strategic housing development, SHD, process to grant planning permission for residential developments of 13 storeys in Citywest close to Saggart village, no such residential permissions are being granted in the city core----- --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2021-11-03/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:49:45+00:00 Sitting date: 2021-11-03