Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is important, when we have representatives of a body like An Bord Pleanála before the committee, that we get all the answers we need rather than having to write to the board or come back again to the issue. Pre-application consultations were mentioned by Deputy Mulherin and others and I agree with those comments. Is the process universally applied across the country or are there differences between counties? Everybody has the right to it but does the board notice in its study of applications that some counties do not have such meetings or only a few of them? Perhaps the decisions are not as good as they should be if everybody had a pre-application consultation?