John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and officials. These regulations are welcome in order to bring clarity to the sector. It is very important that they have clear sight of these in short order. The concerns I expressed on Second, Committee and Report Stages do not necessarily relate to the fees structure but relate more so to the resourcing of local authorities to be able to fulfil their obligations in terms of these planning applications. We put a robust system with timelines in place. There are fines in place for An Bord Pleanála should it fail to meet the requirements of the statutory timelines that are being set down. I would like to hear the Minister of State's comments on the resourcing of local authorities, particularly the larger local authorities. There is already a shortage within planning departments across the country. I cited examples of planning departments that sent further information requests to developers in their planning applications looking for information that was already in the planning documents. That was done to buy time and push out the decision time because they simply did not have the resources in-house to make the timelines that are set down. My concern in bringing it back to the local authorities, which in principle I agree with and I support the two-stage planning process, relates to current resourcing within planning departments. I welcome comment from the Minister of State on whether requests for additional resourcing from local authorities to central Government will be supported in this regard. We know An Bord Pleanála had significant additional staff to support the SHD process and it is fitting, therefore, that local authorities are staffed to the same equivalent.