Alan Kelly (Tipperary, Labour) | Oireachtas source

That is for transparency and ease of use. I am not going to take up much committee time on this but there are a number of other useful recommendations. Recommendation No. 3 relates to managerial oversight. Recommendation Nos. 6 and 8 deal with board members being appointed by the public appointments service, PAS. That goes outside the board's remit and is more of a departmental issue but that is a no-brainer and should happen. Recommendation No. 16 relates to biannual seminars. Recommendation No. 24 deals with performance management. There are a whole range of recommendations that need legislative changes which, I understand, would come through the Department and not the board.

Deputy MacSharry spoke about the use of local authorities and I do not believe An Bord Pleanála should be hiring rooms in hotels unless it is going through a very long process. I think they should all be in local authorities, or somewhere close to them.

Recommendation No. 66 is aimed at easing pressures, getting the timelines down and meeting the timeframes set out. It suggests appointing one board member for small developments unless they are going to contradict it. The timelines must improve.

Referring back to my time in the Department, I believe the relationship between An Bord Pleanála and the Department needs to change. I will not say too much more about that but it needs to change pretty quickly.

Another recommendation is that where there is a contravention of a local development plan over a certain level, there should be consultation with the public. Does that happen? It does not. That has to happen and that is an example of a recommendation that never came in.

The board should have an annual conference. Recommendation No. 98 states there should be a head of communications. At the end of the year, key decisions should be explained.

As far as I am concerned, all this is about transparency to the public about operations, the people who make the decisions, how people are appointed, how money is spent and to ensure that serious contraventions of local developments are explained. All this needs to be front-facing. The days of An Bord Pleanála hiding behind secrets and a process that nobody knows about, although I know about it and can see it, are over. The process needs to be front and centre for the public to see. People do not respect, appreciate or understand how all this works. That is becoming a problem because discourses are emanating out there as regards decision making. That creates rumours, which creates concerns. I believe some of these are not warranted. However, I demonstrated examples at the beginning of this meeting where they are warranted, justified and are affecting people's lives in a massive and disproportionate way. It is wrong.

I have a couple of final points to make and questions to ask. I bet our guests are glad I came to the committee today. A number of pieces of legislation are recommended as part of the 101 recommendations. Have our guests any issue with any of the proposed pieces of legislation? If so, they might tell me.