Mr. Niall Cussen:

Yes. It will fit over the three different planning administration systems we have in this country. For whatever reason, the authorities in counties Dublin and Wexford have one system, the two local authorities in County Cork have another and the rest have a third system. None of those systems talk to one another, nor do they talk to the building control management system. The Senator mentioned activation. We do not have a live register, if you like, of whether stuff is turning on or not, as the case may be, although work is ongoing in the Department trying to overcome the technological barriers there. The building control management system was built for a completely different purpose, such as for building control, commencement notices and so on. The planning administration systems were built for a different purpose. The issue is not really covered in the Bill but maybe it could be looked at. The whole area of digital planning has tremendous potential to deliver efficiencies. It will probably require a significant investment because we are talking about 30,000 decisions made by 31 local authorities, as well as all the interfaces and so on.

E-planning is a great initiative. Plan-IT in the board has been coming along. It is good that we have this and that it is being moved forward. However, we need to move to a totally new paradigm in relation to digital services. Look at how many other aspects of public services have evolved, such as in regard to passports and what-not. On the idea of a standard electronic system by which we interact with planning authorities and how all the data capture and data analytics happens behind that, we are just not there and that requires investment, which is the resourcing piece.

We are happy to engage further with the committee on fees. I know the Department has done some background work on different regimes and what may be looked at in that area. It is a function of the Minister to set those fees. Considering the independent role of this office, regulators in many areas provide independent oversight of fees and charges. That is not currently within our statutory remit. That is all I will say.

On the scope to compel activation of planning applications, there is a raft of parallel policy initiatives under way in that regard. The residential zoned land tax is a very important one. It will place a significant workload on the board, particularly Ms O'Connor's team, as many of those plans are looked at afresh in the context of whether the designations are appropriate.

On the engagement with the Department, as I signalled earlier, we are just starting to get our heads around engaging with the five planning schools. I refer to a piece of work around looking at their graduate output. We raised this during the last meeting of the national planning knowledge group as recently as last week. We hope to come to that at our next meeting in late spring or early summer. We are happy to come back to the committee on that. It is about engaging with the Department as it is a cross-over between the Office of the Planning Regulator and the Minister.