Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To pick up that point, I have always been of the view that it is primarily a resourcing issue in the sense that both the length of time it takes the board to make decisions and the length of time it takes the courts to proceed is a function of the number of people who are working on those cases. There is obvious logic to that.

I believe, however, that we should try to have a planning system with a legal element that provides the maximum level of certainty. For me, it is not about compressing. When I talk to developers, they do not really necessarily mind how long it takes. What they want to know is how long it takes. For me, therefore, certainty rather than compression is why I think timelines are valuable.

Ms Oonagh Buckley from An Bord Pleanála made a very compelling case to say, yes, let us have timelines but let us link timelines to both resourcing and complexity of cases. I accept that principle. If that is the conversation we are having, the first question I will ask both witnesses from their experience is about what those timelines then start to look like. At some point, somebody has to start putting numbers on a piece of paper. The purpose of the timelines is not to compress but to get good quality decisions in a certain period within the current resources. The Department did not indicate to us that additional resources were arising consequent to the passing of this Bill; certainly in the immediate period. What kinds of timelines are we looking at? What would be reasonable? I will ask the question another way. What kinds of timelines would not be reasonable?