Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Thursday, 9 February 2023
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government
General Scheme of the Planning and Development Bill: Discussion (Resumed)
Ms Oonagh Buckley:
There is one imperative reasons of overriding public interest, IROPI, case, which is a series of box files sitting in my office. They could not find anywhere else to put it as it is a very large file.
I will just make one slightly nerdy point, if I may, but hopefully one that any behavioural economist who may have the misfortune to be happening to be listening to us will understand. As the Deputy may know, in the way that the fines are currently structured, one pays a once-off fine. Effectively, therefore, a party buys time, and in fact an endless amount of time, and there is no actual obligation on the board to do anything further in respect of reporting how long it is taking on those. There can be strange behavioural effects to do with the fine system which, I believe, is worth thinking about also.
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