Mr. Robert Keran:

I thank Deputy Gould. This morning, I was at the Joint Committee on Autism and the conversation went in a similar direction. Again, with regard to neurodiversity and planning for neurodiversity, it is a new skill set, and it is very difficult to impose on a system which already has difficulties. We will be publishing some research in July on planners, qualifications and numbers. There are a couple of things which I would say about that. Practically, it is incumbent on all of us to make planning an attractive career. I guess some of the narrative around planning is sometimes unhelpful, and we probably need to talk more around the opportunities in it. The OPR, in fairness, has done some work with CareersPortal, which is where many second-level students get their ideas on what courses to do. It is trying to make planning an attractive career at that level.

We need to look at grades, salary scales and so on. Local authorities are finding it difficult to get people at the lower grades, and that is because they are maybe coming from England where they are at a certain level. They are going in at the bottom of a grade, so it is just not attractive to them to go into local authorities or the public sector.

We need to look at bursaries for students studying planning. The courses we accredit are typically a two-year masters or three-plus-ones, and one needs to do that to get the skills and knowledge which ones needs, but it is expensive. It is particularly expensive if one is in Dublin.

There are issues with the capacity of the planning schools to deliver more students than they can. I think there are 70 to 75 students coming out this year. It will be less next year, so the capacity of the schools to produce the graduates is an issue as well.

The other thing is there is probably a lack of joined-up thinking. The Higher Education Authority had some funding under the human capital initiative for conversion courses and so on, and planning was specifically excluded. A planning school could not apply to run some sort of conversion course. The only mention of planning in that last round of funding was about planning offshore renewables, so engineering is kind of what it was talking about. Again, it is probably a lack of joined-up thinking.

The Department and the OPR are very alive to this, and we are as well. We are looking at what we can do to make planning an attractive career, encourage people in to it and encourage take-up in the schools. However, with the skills in this and the forthcoming legislation, none of it is going to work unless we have the people and we are setting it up to fail. That is something which came across very strongly in this committee's pre-legislative scrutiny report as well. Without putting these things in place, things are not going to improve in the way which people think they are going to. They are some things we think need to be considered.