Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for cutting across Ms Uí Bhroin. Could she perhaps come back to the committee with some key suggestions?

I turn now the representatives from the RIAI. I particularly like the layout of its submission. We had a bit of discussion about a county planner and a country architect. They will know themselves that there are many county architects in counties. Regarding the relationship between these two roles - and we do not have a lot of country planners with exclusive statutory rights - there has been a strong case made that if we were to make a choice between a country architect or a country planner, we should opt for a country planner. The RIAI will not want to hear that, clearly, but there is a strong relationship with both. I would like to think we would have a country architect but I know of sitting county architects who are working on public pedestrian schemes. This is a terrible waste and use of a highly trained professional architect. They have not been building houses, or certainly not designing many houses. Can the RIAI make a case for a county architect to be retained and how it thinks there could be that synergy, cross-functionality and purpose with a county planner? I think there is a case for both professions.