Mr. Eamonn Kelly:

I thank Deputy McAuliffe for the question. The first point is that this is not a change or the introduction of something new. Applications for substitute consent have always gone to An Bord Pleanála. It is important because of what the Deputy mentioned in that they are very rare. Looking over the records there was a glut of maybe 30 or 40 substitute consent applications when the legislation was originally introduced back in 2012 and 2013 and they were mostly related to quarries. The vast majority of these relate to quarries. Many of those were time-bound. There are very few now and we are talking about four or five per year that might get through. They are spread all over the country. They are very technical and often subject to very detailed environmental considerations.

As it stands, we have a concentration of expertise in An Bord Pleanála in this respect. This is not the same as strategic infrastructure development or something that is going to happen much. Let us say these are problematic developments that might have historical issues of which the local authority would be aware. The local authority would be fully involved in the substitute consent process and given ten weeks to make submissions to An Bord Pleanála on that. An Bord Pleanála would be fully apprised of any concerns that a local authority might have.

We are considering leaving it with An Bord Pleanála because it is so rare and unusual and it would be a drain on the resources of local authorities. These concern environmentally sensitive matters. There are county councils from Leitrim to Roscommon to Galway involved with this. It is spread all over the country. We are not talking about a concentration of residential developments that might happen with strategic housing developments in cities, for example. As colleagues from my Department have acknowledged, amendments will be made to give points to local authorities for elements to be zoned.

In many of these cases there is no zoning. It may be in open and rural countryside for agricultural buildings, wind farms and quarries. I do not know if that answers the Deputy's question but it is a matter of efficiency.