Mr. Philip Nugent:

Can I get back in there? This goes back to a point that I made earlier on a number of occasions when we talked about the possibility of removing either the planning element or the licensing aspect of it and what would be required in order to introduce that new regulatory regime which would be either planning or licensing. We are very much of the view that that would not improve the position in terms of the timeframes and that the fastest way to regularisation is through the existing dual consent regime.

The implication of the High Court judgment clearly was that one cannot get away with removing the substitute consent element. That needs to be part of either a single consent or dual consent regime. We are saying that legislating for a new single consent regime that also properly respects the environmental impact assessment directive and allows for substitute consent would not deliver decisions any more quickly than the existing dual consent regime.