Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I would certainly have to absorb fully what is being said regarding the functions of the board and consider that. I hear what the Minister and the officials are saying, but I am not sure what I think of it, to be honest, so I reserve the right to submit amendments on Report Stage on this aspect. I was chatting informally with the officials outside and they were saying that they would dig out some material to give us comparisons regarding how other agencies might work. I would appreciate that.

However, if we were to use an analogy, which I think the Minister of State used a little while ago, of the planning department in a local authority making decisions about planning applications, that is correct and the elected representatives are not involved in the process. The elected representatives, however, have the opportunity - I think monthly - to bring forward observations on any application and through that process to feed the views of the public and stakeholders into deliberations that the planning department might be having regarding granting consent for a particular development proposal.

I am not saying that is a perfect analogy either. I am just pointing out that there is at least in that instance a mechanism in place for some input into and oversight of the deliberations on the granting of consent in particular cases. Perhaps the Minister of State might like to clarify this point, but as the legislation stands, it seems that consent will be granted for applications by the full-time MARA team. I would certainly have to think about that aspect and what is important in this regard when issuing consent for applications, because my gut feeling tells me that we still need to be guaranteed that we will have the sort of expertise and a degree of independence inherent in the making of those types of decisions. The Minister of State is saying that the board does not make decisions, but the team does. The question is how we can ensure that there is that degree of independence and the possibility for people to just be a bit contrarian.