Mr. Paul Hyde:

It is not for me to question the policies. We are guided by the legislative policy and we will respond to it. That is the way we have to apply it as public servants and that is what we do.

On the Deputy's point about the time scales, we endeavour to meet our statutory requirements on all our time scales. We have been affected by Covid-19 and there was a planning freeze during the first lockdown so we have had to rearrange things internally, like every other public agency, to manage the workload.

On Deputy McAuliffe's points, the judicial review process is not an appeal mechanism per se. It is a process whereby somebody can take a review at the judicial level of the process. It is not about the merits of the case.