Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will take the next slot. It has been confirmed to us that sections 48 and 49 will be going back into the new planning Bill and that this measure is likely to form part of the planning Bill as well. We are doing separate pre-legislative scrutiny on that.

Dr. O'Leary mentioned resources and said we would be sick of talking about resources. The committee has come to the conclusion in a lot of hearings that we have had on planning recently that resources are one of the key issues, if not the key issue, in regard to planning. We know the figure. Some 540 planning staff were required across local authorities. I know there are staff increases in An Bord Pleanála and also increases in the number of board members, as well as in the Office of the Planning Regulator and in the regional assemblies.

It is not just at the planning stage because in the planning Bill we discussed certainty and timeframes in planning decisions and also regarding judicial review. We need to ensure that the resources are in place across the court system. Time limits cannot be imposed on something so complex unless sufficient resources are in place to meet those timeframes. Dr. O'Leary and Ms Jones both appeared before the committee previously regarding the planning Bill.

On the public consultation for an urban development zone, I think there would have to be quite extensive public consultation. What discussions have they had? What concerns do they have about the capacity at local authority level to do that properly so that we get the outcome we expect? We want the discussion, the changes and the ideas at that grander scale rather than when we are getting into the site notices going up. One of the objectives set out in the planning Bill was to take the discussion out of the application stage and bring it back to the overall forward planning stage. I am aware that we load a lot on our local authorities and there is difficulty in recruiting and retaining planning staff.