Ms Deirdre Scully:

Any SDZ is a very large project. In many ways what the planning authority is doing is taking some of the work of a planning application and pulling it into the plan-making stage by going to the board with the plan itself. Rather than the developer having to apply for permission, go to the board and go through the process of justifying the development to An Bord Pleanála, the council has done that for the developer. That adds to the time it takes to prepare an SDZ. It is a necessary part of it because it has such an important and significant impact on a person’s third party rights. It is essential but in recognising and identifying an area for an SDZ, it must be reflected that as a tool the SDZ it is designed to deliver a whole range of things. It is not a quick delivery. There are other local area plans, there is the development plan process and the way land is zoned, or, for example, there is the way in which Dublin City Council has the strategic development regeneration areas, SDRAs, where we set everything out in the development plan and give a general framework as to how the area will be developed. Those lands can move forward immediately. It is about making sure the sites picked are the correct sites for the tool in question, rather than a problem with the tool itself.