Ms Anne Marie O'Connor:

We very much share the Chair's sentiments on the importance of public participation in the plan-making process. It is something that we too have been thinking about in terms of how we could improve it. The structures in the legislation are probably strong enough. It is more about the implementation, how we would do it and how we would actively engage people to be motivated to understand that this is something that they should give their time to. We are working with the EPA on a research project to do with public participation, in particular, strategic environmental assessment, SEA. That goes to the heart of much of the plan-making process when we think about the decisions that need to be made in that regard. Out of that will come a piece of research that will present a number of recommendations and a framework for how we can engage with local communities on the plan-making process and strategic environmental assessment. We will then be able to turn that into one of our case study papers, which we will be able to disseminate to local authorities to provide some guidance and advice. As the Chair correctly said, the planning system in general has struggled with this over the years. That is an initiative we are undertaking but it is difficult to legislate for it.