Ms Oonagh Buckley:

Indeed.

We have been discussing the fact that it is critical, as board members come on stream and we clear the backlog, to have a pipeline of suitably prioritised planning reports and such material coming through to the board. There are ways and means of doing it.

This has happened to the board before. There have been backlogs and dips in performance before and the board always sorted them out when it got the right balance of resources at board level and among staff. As with all backlogs in all public services, it is a matter of prioritisation, resourcing and making the system as efficient as possible. Those three elements will ultimately sort this. That is no consolation if one is waiting on one’s planning appeal or kitchen extension – I absolutely get that – but we will have to try to manage as best we can with the resources we have. There is not a single member of staff who is not absolutely committed to doing this. At this point, I have met almost all of the 200 members of staff and noted they are very committed to delivering what the board needs to deliver. However, it will take us a little time. Unfortunately, we will have to ask the public, developers, applicants and appellants for some patience because we have a backlog that we have to work our way through.