Mr. Gavin Lawlor:

I think the structure is fine. The issue is with resources and always has been. On multiple occasions the Irish Planning Institute has called for more resources to be provided. That resource difficulty is at the inspectorate level, the administrative level and particularly now at the board level. Whenever there is a depletion of board members whether it is through holidays, through sickness, through resignation or through natural termination of contracts at the end of terms, if there is any delay in appointing new board members, it creates a difficulty for the board because they do not have the same number of bodies to make decisions.

A quorum of three is required to make a decision even in the smallest application, such as a pair of gates or an appeal. There is a difficulty if the board only has five members because it is effectively only possible to have one board sitting at any one time making decisions. Each of those appeals deserves proper consideration because of the people who have raised the issues. It might only be a short issue, but it still deserves proper consideration. There are also much more complex issues such as motorways, railway orders, renewable energy projects, strategic housing or just generally big housing now called large-scale residential development, LRD, which will end up with the board. The issue is there a significant logjam in the board. Any time that the development world picks up in terms of economic increase, the issue arises. Unfortunately, I have been around for three development cycles. This has happened three times during my career where the board-----