Mr. Colin Ryan:

The purpose of what was known as a section 5 declaration is to ask the simple question: is it or is it not a development? That is the purpose of the action, namely, to allow a person who owns a property or has an interest in a property to ask that question of the planning authority. In regard to enforcement action and non-authorised development, that is a separate wing of the planning section of the existing Act. It is not about cross-streaming; the purpose is to look at it more from an efficiency point of view in terms of what people have been asked and what the planning authority has been asked for, which is the question of whether it is exempt for the purposes of somebody else. At the end of the day, it is about the expressed view of the planning authority based on the information given to it at the present moment in time. It behoves individuals to make of it what they will in the sense of following up on it or not, as the case may be. If they do not follow up, then issues around enforcement action, unauthorised developments and so on come into play. The same applies to a third-party aspect in terms of the information and the question being asked of that party. It is a matter for the planning authority to take a view as to whether a development is or is not unauthorised.