Ms Phoebe Duvall:

Also, in terms of e-planning, which we talked about earlier, there are many issues around the accessibility of the documents, the way different counties format them, having word-searchable PDFs, and having electronic publication for the board. Currently, we find it to be a massive issue that documents are not published on An Bord Pleanála's website. Also in terms of decisions, these same issues around when the clock starts, versus when the information is available, apply. We get decision notifications sent in the post after the decision is made but then we do not necessarily have access to the actual decision online until later. There are a lot of these kind of issues, which I would be very happy to provide in a more detailed specific written response, but I think these really hinder ourselves as prescribed bodies but also the public participation, especially in relation to the board. If you are outside of Dublin, getting in to view a file could potentially be very difficult. Also the board stores files offsite so getting access to the paper file can take time. All of this eats into the public participation period and in our view, really hampers the ability of the public to engage on particular applications.