Mr. Niall Cussen:

We have a national planning knowledge group. We have brought together the five relevant higher education institutions - the five universities on the island, two in the North and three in the South. We meet quarterly in the context of a broad-ranging research and knowledge agenda.

The Chair made a good point about the capacity of planning colleges. We need administrative and legal staff as well as staff for all the different disciplines. In the planning area specifically, there was a significant enhancement of the capacity of output of graduates going back to the 2000 Act when the Minister at the time engaged with the universities to ramp up their output significantly. We have a sense that while the physical capacity is there, perhaps the lecturing and production capacity has tapered off a little because of a lack of other internal resources. We are engaging with the Department and the sector to look at the five universities, what their trends have been on output and where they are in capacity and in trying to enhance it so we can be assured we will have that pipeline of expertise coming into the service. There is also scope for recruitment abroad. It has worked in the past to some extent. We have people in our office who returned from the UK. Irish people who worked in the UK system have come back. That might be an area to consider. The Chair's point about the capacity of the universities and a variety of training areas to get the expertise we need, such as ecologists, marine planners and so on, into the service is important. We can engage further with the committee about some ideas around that but it will not be in the Bill.