Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will take the next slot. My question goes back to resources and timelines again. The more resources there are, the more likely it is that timelines will be met. When an organisation is stressed and its staff are overloaded, and when they are dealing with matters of a highly complex nature with legacy outcomes on the decisions, it puts people under pressure. If strict timelines are applied in those conditions, my guess is that they end up making mistakes and making poor decisions. There is a link between meeting timelines and having proper resources and proper experience. It is not just the experience of trained people but also of competent people and people with long-term experience in these roles. If a company has ten graduate planners come in, the organisation could say that it has ten planners in that department, but we all know that lifetime experience is required to become competent and experienced, and to have been mentored and tutored those who have gone before.

There is something that we also miss. There is an onus on the applicant in the planning application. We set out plans and guidelines in local area plans, county development plans and national guidelines. If applicants applies for consent for a development that stays within those guidelines - or sticks to them - they have a reasonable expectation that they will be granted consent because they has stayed within the development guidelines. If they put in something that pushes the boundaries, and further information is required and the application is refused because of that, there is an onus of responsibility on them as well. That needs to be clarified.

The OPR's second report has listed in the appendix at the back 146 judicial reviews, with a breakdown of the decisions and the outcomes of those. In the first report there was a recommendation to have a legal advisory team within the board. With regard to the process of putting that legal advisory team together, or increasing the legal advice available to the board, has recruitment started?

Has anyone examined the 146 judicial reviews in-depth, although I am sure somebody has, and considered whether, had these proposed changes to judicial reviews in Part 9 been in place prior to the 146 reviews, the outcomes have been different? What are we trying to fix with Part 9?