Minister Roche living in another world.

Minister for the Environment, Dick Roche, at the annual Engineers Ireland Conference said yesterday, "If you are looking for an exemplar of a country that can grow democratically and at the same time develop environmental sustainability, we're as good an examplar as you'll find." An interesting claim considering the European Environment Agency recently identified Dublin's urban sprawl as a "worst-case scenario" in city planning, and is using Dublin as an example of what not to do when it comes to urban planning. In a study designed to help new EU member states like Poland avoid making the same mistakes, it also said that "extremely passive" planning policies have led to undesirable urban sprawl in towns and villages throughout Ireland. In light of this it might be helpful if Mr Roche could tell us in what parallel universe Ireland is such an exemplar of environmental sustainability. Maybe someone could go there and find out what they were doing right.