Mr. Gavin Lawlor:

A better way to look at this may be that we should cut our cloth to match our means. We have a finite resource. The committee has heard evidence from the RTPI that planners in Ireland are being sought out to work in Scotland or elsewhere in the UK. There is a general shortage of qualified town planners in Europe. The board is seeking 59 staff. When employed, those staff will have come from our organisations or local authorities. We then have to replace them in our organisation. This year, local authorities are directly recruiting graduates from planning school for the first time ever, which is great. Heretofore, graduates needed two years' experience to get the job. Classically, when there was a recession they could not get that experience but when there was a boom they could go to consultants to get the basic skills and would then go into planning authorities. We do not have the bums on seats to do what is in the current legislation. There is a significant question in respect of whether some of this should be simplified. We should crawl before we walk and walk before we run.