Mr. Niall Cussen:

I might ask my colleague, Ms O'Connor, to respond to the question on the Dún Laoghaire issue. Could you keep some time at the end for her, Chairman, to respond on that specific point? There were a lot of very positive aspects of that development plan that we were very happy with, but there was one issue we thought needed to be looked at more closely. It would be erroneous to suggest that we were calling the Dún Laoghaire development plan into question in any significant way. We might just have some time for Ms O'Connor to come back on that point because she manages that part of the operation.

On the SHD, the operation of the website, and eplanning generally, I must be honest with Senator Moynihan that we have probably not had the focus we would like on online planning services. One thing we have been doing is undertaking a survey of the effectiveness of the online offer of the various local authorities in terms of their planning application viewer facilities, how quickly drawings go up online, how easy it is to navigate and the quality of what one can see online, among other issues. We will publish that shortly. We are going back to the local authorities that we surveyed to make sure that we got the picture accurate and we will publish the survey as an assessment of the effectiveness of the online offer of local authorities.

It is fair to say that we have not engaged with An Bord Pleanála on its online offer, as of yet, but it is in our scope for examination later on this year and into next year. The whole online planning process and the accessibility of planning services online needs a serious look. The online planning application project is coming along and will be trialled in Tipperary County Council in the very near future. We need to see that rolled out more effectively and comprehensively across the sector. To answer the straight question: we have not looked very closely at the SHD and the online offer of the board, but we do have that in our work programme for later this year and into next year.

If Senator Moynihan has any specific queries that she wants to raise with us afterwards, through the committee structures, we would be happy to take them up with her offline, so to speak. Ms O'Connor will come back on the Dún Laoghaire piece in a little bit. Is that okay?