Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect to existing energy infrastructure, whether it is seeking extension or repowering, these are just some of the questions that industry representatives have raised with us. There are issues around not only the cost of seeking to extend but also the timing of it, particularly if there are delays in the decision-making process. Will the Minister provide us with a little more detail as to how, separate from the regulations, which will come from the Department of the Minister, Deputy Ryan, this process will work? Is the Minister, Deputy O'Brien, confident that there will not be any cliff edges where somebody's existing permission is coming to an end because of, for example, delays with the board or elsewhere or because the application for the extension, for example, might not coincide? That is my first question.

My second question goes back to the original question I asked. Section 40 of the Act, as it currently stands, will go, but what I am not clear on - and we can deal with this in more detail at the section but it is relevant to this amendment - is, in the absence of the 25-year timeline, which was written into section 40 of the existing Act, what is now the procedure. Is it that each grant will have a timeline to it and that timeline will be related to the assessment of the application? How are the new timelines likely to work? I think one of the things industry was saying is that there is a lack of clarity. They know it is being removed but they are not necessarily sure what is being put in place. Is it still the intention to have timelines of a 25-year or 30-year duration, or what is the thinking?

This is not a comment on the An Bord Pleanála stuff. What is really good about the information the Minister gives us with respect to An Bord Pleanála is that he can tell us the total number of staff it has. With the local authorities it would also be really important because they could actually have a net reduction in staff, notwithstanding the new recruitments, so that would be really good to get.