Dr. Mary Kelly:

First, it is not the case that third parties will not be heard. I said there is no appeal, but the third parties are heard from the very beginning of the applications process. Third party observers will make their submissions. The inspector will review, evaluate, assess and make a recommendation to the board. The board will see the submissions from third parties at board meetings, but it is a one-application process. There is no appeal to our decision, but that does not mean that third parties will not be heard. Third parties will be heard. They will have the opportunity to make whatever submissions they want and they will have them evaluated and assessed in the normal way. The board will consider those alongside the application when the board is making the decision on the application. There is no question that third party views will not be represented to the board; they will be.

Senator Boyhan asked about enforcement. An Bord Pleanála is a statutory body set up under the Planning and Development Acts agreed by the Oireachtas. It has no enforcement role whatsoever, and it never did have one. The board was originally set up as an appellate body in the 2007 Act and began to take the direct applications on strategic infrastructure development. The Bill is only a general scheme at the moment but we are trying to plan forward. When the Bill is enacted it may give us these provisions to do direct applications but we do not have any enforcement function. Planning enforcement has always been carried out by local authorities. It has been the case for all the years of planning that the local authorities carry out the planning. The board has no role to play in that regard. It is not that we consciously wash our hands of anything. We do the job we are asked to do, make the decision and move on to another decision. It is not that we are ignoring enforcement; it is outside our viresto have anything to do with enforcement.

On the EIA side, the EIA-AA screening part in the scheme before us refers more generally to EIA and AA screening outside of housing. It is almost a stand alone piece that is being put in with this part of the scheme. It applies to all kinds of projects. In terms of the scheme it is a little confusing in that it is not only applicable to houses. The county development plan, the local area plan, LAP, and any of those high-level plans have already had strategic environmental assessment, SEA, and appropriate assessment carried out at the macro scale. Were appropriate assessment or EIA to arise on an individual application before us, that would be one of the issues that would be flagged at the early stages. Nobody would be coming back to the board with an application without an EIA where one was required, but it would be a big thing to have to do at that stage. I imagine that people who are putting forward developments under this scheme and who want them decided within a fast-track area will know if they need an EIA and will do that project elsewhere. Fast-track is for projects that are ready to be determined quickly. It would have to have all that information to hand immediately. If they are ready to do that and they have the EIA it can be done but otherwise, it will not. The EIA and the AA process would involve the public being involved at the earliest stage because separate regulations apply to those under the European directive. Those projects are almost in a separate category.

On the board appointments, the Planning and Development Act sets out precisely how board members and the chairperson are appointed. To deal with the chairperson first, the chairperson is appointed following a public competition, which is run through the Public Appointments Service. Following the competition, two or three names go to the Minister of the day, I understand the Minster proposes a name to the Cabinet and the appointment is made. The chairperson's appointment is for a seven-year term.

The ordinary board members are appointed in a different way and this has been the case since the establishment of An Bord Pleanála. The Act sets out a number of statutory nominating bodies under a number of headings such as the economic sector and so on. I do not have the exact details but there are five or six panels and those panels consist of organisations that are either involved in the environment, the community, education and so on. There are different panels of people. The Act requires the Department to seek nominations from those bodies when board membership becomes available. The nominations go to the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government. They are assessed by the Department and the Minister makes the final decision on those, but the nominating bodies have different ways of deciding who to nominate. Some of them go through interview procedures. Engineers Ireland is one of the nominating bodies and it would usually seek expressions of interest, conduct interviews and recommend somebody on the basis of that process. Other bodies have different processes. An Bord Pleanála has nothing to do with it. It is conducted by the Department under the terms of the Planning and Development Acts.

The nominating body model is meant to get a board that reflects civil society because the nominating panels are reflective of civil society. In fairness, it has worked very well over the years. It brings forward people with experience in various areas who are nominated by civil society to sit on the board, but the final decision rests with the Minister.

Regarding legal fees, we do not know what happens on the other side. We do not know what costs other people are incurring. We only know what we have to pay. We only know third party costs if they become visible and we have to pay them. It depends on the arrangements between the persons taking the judicial review and their legal team. Sometimes we understand that solicitors or lawyers will take a case for people on the basis that if they win, they will get paid. We do not really know what the fees are. I do not know the average. Our experience suggests there is a huge variation in arrangements and costs. It also depends on the size of the case. Some cases have two or three senior counsel, a few junior counsel and many other people attending. Depending on how the case goes in the court, it could be there for one day, half a day or 16 days. We have no control over that. It is very difficult to come up with an average on it, so I cannot really help the Deputy on that. It is an expensive activity.