Kevin O'Keeffe (Cork East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It will. I respect Mr. Nolan's answer but the reason the numbers are going down is that the council engineers do not want to be getting egg on their faces. I have been a member of a local authority. Cases were granted by that local authority but then were appealed and refused. Later, the engineer would say to me, in my capacity as a councillor, that there was no way the planning permission would be signed off on because he would get more egg on his face when the application was turned over again by the TII. That is why the numbers are going down.