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

I am out of time. With the Chair's indulgence, we had quite an engagement with the Office of the Planning

Regulator who, in a previous life, was very involved in all these discussions and with the board, about the extent to which the Oireachtas should be involved. When there are significant changes to planning regulations, we have a mechanism in the Oireachtas which is that the officials come before this committee, we get to interrogate them and then there is a motion, which is taken without debate. The value of that mechanism is that it brings an additional layer of scrutiny, accountability and public clarity. That has been very helpful in the context of a range of matters. There is no provision anywhere in this section for a role for the Oireachtas. We have this system for less complex and maybe less controversial planning regulations, although some of them have recently been pretty controversial and we have dealt with them in a very sensible way. Surely there should be some role for the Oireachtas, which would strengthen the transparency, accountability and robustness of the statements in question. Is that something the Department could consider?