Mr. Niall Cussen:

It would be premature for me to draw any kind of off-the-cuff conclusions, but I reassure the members of the committee of some of our work and what we are doing. For example, we are working closely with the City and County Management Association, the Local Government Management Agency and the Department in undertaking a decent baseline analysis of the exact staffing across the various local authority areas. It is difficult to get very detailed statistics on the people and skills that are in different local authorities. As part of that work, we also hope to employ that knowledge and evidence in the development of a learning and development strategy that would inform training, reskilling and even looking at skills deficits where there is perhaps a gap.

Another area of our work that I would like to mention is our review function. We are looking at local authorities. I hope that next year, when we are back into full operation once the Covid restrictions that are hampering us a little bit at the moment are eased, we will review five to six local authorities on the broad scope and delivery of their planning functions, how they compare with their neighbours and in terms of national yardsticks. We have published a methodology for undertaking the reviews, which is on our website. We developed it with the local authorities, the Department and the various stakeholders. That will give a very good picture over the next year or two of where the various local authorities are at.

If you grant me a little bit of leeway, Chairman, I will say that the issue of resources is pressing. It goes back to the point raised by Senator Boyhan on the need for investment in online services. Planning application fees in this country have been static since 2001. My recollection of the National Oversight and Audit Commission's report of 2018 is that it cost approximately €140 million to run the local authority planning service, net of the board, and fees represented approximately 17% of the cost of running the service. That is probably one area for examination in the context of ensuring that local authorities have the income that is needed to defray the cost of running what is becoming a much more complex planning process than has been the case heretofore.