Ms Oonagh Buckley:

The Deputy is quite correct. The level of complexity in the planning and environmental system is of an order that is different from what it was. I used to be involved in this area 15 or 16 years ago, which is probably why I was invited back to do this role temporarily. The level of complexity involved is streets ahead of where it was even 15 years ago. To a degree, we need resources, yes, and we need expertise. I have a substantial sanctioned rate of pulling people in but I will probably be going back to the Department in due course to say, in fact, we need extra ecologists and we need those skills. We do much recruitment of external expertise because quite often, say, on the marine side, those skill sets are not available in Ireland or where they are available, they have already been used and are involved in the private sector in preparing its applications and, therefore, we cannot use them because there are conflicts or other public bodies are desperately trying to recruit them. Those are some of the issues. We tend to have to pull in expertise from across Europe. That is what we are looking at there.

It will be a challenge to keep ahead of all those, particularly under the current Government given its focus on these matters. The focus I have, and one of the cultural shifts we need to make as we move into being An Coimisiún Pleanála, will be a focus on a learning environment and a constantly evolving learning body so that the people who we bring in keep pace with those developments and keep learning. That is going to have to be a big investment in the new staff we have and, indeed, in the board members because the board members need to be kept up to speed with these developments as well.