Ms Oonagh Buckley:

In fairness, I was very pleased that we actually did get applicants for the director of legal services role, which was good. We have revised our arrangements so that inspectors now put a statement on the front of the file saying that nobody affected their opinion on the case. That is the important point about the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR. However, An Bord Pleanála does tend to disagree with the inspectors' opinions. Boards disagree in an average of 10% to 12% of cases per year. That is expected because the job given to the board is to review what the inspector is saying and come to its own independent decision. That is the job. If you wanted to, you could make the inspector the final arbiter but that is the way the system has been designed. I think it is healthy because it means it is not just one person making the decision. I should not be critical because, in the UK, which has a very similar system to the Republic of Ireland's - a certain amount of copying is involved - it is the inspector who acts as the final arbiter.