Ciarán Lynch (Cork South Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There is a difference between appealing and reviewing. The Department of Social Protection has an appeals process and a review process, with a significant difference between the two. The appeals process is where one re-enters the entire process, like going from a local authority to An Bord Pleanála, and the review process is where one considers whether someone has taken cognisance of all of the information. One is not requesting new information, as in an appeals process.

Without focusing too specifically on the case I mentioned earlier, that process has merit in such cases. We are saving the taxpayer from a massive hit with the judicial review. The taxpayer pays money on one side or the other, in that the taxpayer is either paying the council's bills or the bills of An Bord Pleanála. It saves the taxpayer a significant amount of money and it allows us to examine matters that may be material contraventions or contraventions of the development plan and to sort the matter out. We can see whether full cognisance was taken of particular matters.