Pippa Hackett (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

The 30 days are there and once the licence is issued, there is a 14-day window for appeals, which was reduced from 28 days because of this situation. The net gain for public participation is still two weeks, since there are six weeks of public participation. Not everyone is satisfied with reducing that appeals window from 28 days to 14 days but in light of what the 30-day public consultation will bring, people who engage with that will be aware of whether they wish to appeal the issuing of a licence.

The time taken will depend on how long it takes an individual ecologist to process it. On the whole, there will not be a significant increase. From the signing of the statutory instrument, we said that my Department expects to be back up to speed from the middle of August onwards.