Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is for a situation arising where eight weeks is too tight for the council to make a decision and it believes it needs a further short period of time, perhaps a month, within which a decision can be made. There might be a resourcing issue. I do not know what the issue would be. If it looks at an application in the period of time and deems it needs further information to make the overall decision, this goes out by way of an FI. It is not there to stop FIs going out. FIs are the standard process. We expect councils to look at applications, but if a situation arose where the council was looking at an application and decided it just needed, for whatever reason, a small bit more time to make a decision on the application - there might be some issue - then it could speak to the applicant and the applicant could give consent for an extra period of time. In the normal course of events, the council would look at it within the eight-week period and either grant it or ask for further information if it needs it to make an ultimate decision. It is not for the routine.