Ms Maria O'Dwyer:

It is just the way it has been done in the past. If we did not have the level of development we have right now, it might not present such a significant problem. It is challenging for us, especially when we are dealing with large industrial connections or have upgrades. As the committee is aware, time is everything when people are trying to make certain investment decisions. From our perspective in being asked to deliver infrastructure, whether for housing or industry, the more certainty one can bring to the processes, the better. For us, the big challenge is the different processes we have to go through and the uncertainty in respect of timelines within each of those processes. We want to be as transparent as possible in all the processes we go through but there would be benefit to having clarity from beginning to end and knowing that once one enters a process, one can be sure one will come out of it at a particular time.