Ms Rachel Minch:

Maybe there is some middle way. I do not know. There is the mitigation that it is not admissible in court proceedings brought by a third party. The difficulty is there is not participation in the process. An option might be to allow for public participation in the section 5 process so, if the owner puts in a request, some form of public notice is published, and if people wish to make submissions they can. That then becomes quite similar to a planning application. As Mr. Lenihan was saying, it is meant to be a quick way for somebody to find out if they need planning permission for something before proceeding with work. I am not sure if there is an easy solution but that is an interesting question.