Francis Noel Duffy (Dublin South West, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

If the current planning system is abolished next week but I put in a planning application tomorrow, I could still be in the system next summer. That is just how it works. There is a 13-week process for planning applications. That is if further information is not sought. If it is, it takes up to six months to go back in. An appeal to An Bord Pleanála can take anything up to six months. At the moment there is the pre-planning process, which, statutorily, is meant to be eight weeks. At the moment it is 16 weeks. The way it is at the moment is nuts. The system is there. If it is shut down and you get in before it is shut down, I think there is a legal entitlement for you to execute or follow through on what you have started. That is my understanding of the matter anyway.