Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I understand that but surely, if we are heading for 50% of the budget of An Bord Pleanála being spent defending court cases and if it is losing 90% of them regarding strategic housing developments, that would tell me that not only is there bad value for money but also that the system is seriously flawed. My final question is about SHDs too. I know the board does not monitor commencements, so if permission is granted for land in Kildare or wherever else, the board does not follow when it starts. Recently released figures show that only about 30% of those schemes have started. Anecdotally, is it An Bord Pleanála's view that on many of these sites where permission is granted for a developer to develop large numbers of houses, bypassing the local authority structure, the developer subsequently sits on the planning permission and now has a more valuable asset in hand and will simply flip that to the highest bidder when the time is right?

We know that house prices are accelerating at the moment. That is well known from the debate in the last couple of weeks both in these Houses and out in the wider public. Would An Bord Pleanála pick up that what is happening here in 70% of cases is that developments are not starting in a timely manner and developers are simply getting their land zoned and getting their permission by taking a shortcut straight to An Bord Pleanála, bypassing the democratically-elected council, and then having a more valuable asset? Would I be accurate in saying that?