Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

They also end up getting a cheque without leaving their desks. That is the other side of it. I concur completely with Deputy O'Connell's comments about the location for oral hearings and the independence of those. I understand that other members have expressed their own views about whether the hearings should be held in local authority buildings. It is not a view of the committee and it is just people giving their own view on it. I can think of nothing worse than having a hearing in the local authority, because regularly it is people appealing a decision of a local authority. The board comes down on the decision in the local authority chamber. It could not be worse and it could not look worse. It could damage the board to be doing that. It would be like a person appealing to the social welfare appeals office and the appeal being heard in the local social welfare office. The person would wonder what chance he or she has going in there and it being the same people again. It would be different faces, but the same. It would be very bad practice for An Bord Pleanála's independence to have anything to do with the inside of a local authority building. Regularly the board adjudicates on cases from them. That is my view, and the Deputy had the same view.

With regard to the board, we have dealt with the women thing and the female gender balance-----