Ms Oonagh Buckley:

We have linked it to the resources. As of tomorrow, I will have six operational members of An Bord Pleanála out of 15 to take decisions. That is fewer than the eight I have today. We have between 700 and 800 planning files on which inspectors have signed off reports. They are sitting with the board because I just do not have enough board members to take decisions. I have already explained that. We have put a notice up on our website so your developer interlocutors will know that.

Second, and it an interesting link back to the incentives put forward, we now have the new large housing development processes under way. Those are associated with strict timelines and come with fines. As the Senator will appreciate, our focus is now on meeting the requirements of the new legislation. We have already paid the fines on the strategic housing developments, SHDs, so we will do them as our resources allow because that is the logical priority given the incentives that are being imposed on the board.

I appreciate the Senator's interlocutors may have financing packages, but they will also appreciate that in many cases the local development plans have changed and changed the ground rules on which those applications were made. We will have to determine those applications based on the enforced development plan. In many cases, as the Senator knows, we are not allowed seek further information. The only way to fix them if they are in material contravention of those plans would be to hold oral hearings, as far as I can make out from a recent High Court judicial review, Crofton Buildings Management CLG & Anor v. An Bord Pleanála. It would be a gross misuse of board resources to hold oral hearings on each of those plans. The likely effect of the change in the law, without in any way specifying anything to do with any particular application, will be that we will have to refuse them because the development plan has changed. That is a consequence of that. We will still have to get a planner to spend weeks or even months writing a planning report on that file, it will have to come up to the board, and a board member will have to take time to read through the paperwork and take the decision, even though the developers know and we know that, because of the law and the development plan having changed, the inevitable consequence of that is a refusal. Perhaps the Senator might go back to his interlocutors and ask them if it would not be a more logical use of the board's resources for them to make an application under the new process. That is a major challenge and a consequence, and it is not wrong in any way. We think it is entirely right and correct. It has always been the law, as far as we understood it, that decisions were taken on the basis of the development plan in force on the day the development plan is there. It is important to remind ourselves that is the case.

In the context of the Bill, that is the way the system will work. Regarding incentives and driving the board towards particular prioritisation of decisions, it is important the committee understands that, logically, that the people running the planning commission will be driven to take those decisions and those prioritisation decisions. It is important this committee understand that in terms of its recommendations back to the Department.