Mr. Ian Doyle:

The Heritage Council and the staff member the Leas-Chathaoirleach mentioned helped to develop this.

In the Heritage Council we see it very much as a programme that we developed and incubated. We note that the actual Town Centre First policy document had a commitment to mainstreaming this. I would argue that the emphasis of the town centre first network and the regeneration officers has been on getting established, building momentum and getting their plans together. The town centre health checks programme has been critical in helping them to achieve that momentum and informing the development and delivery of those plans. Regarding a waiting list, we have since reviewed our role in terms of planning. We are a prescribed body. While we were concentrating very much on health checks, we were not fulfilling our role as a prescribed body as far as we felt we should. As a result and as the commitment is there and it is more closely within the remit of the town centre first, TCF, office, we have concentrated our planning resource - we have one planner - on our status as a prescribed body. We have been commenting on very large-scale planning applications and local area plans, including the recent Roscommon local area plan. That is where we have been putting emphasis. We do note the comments about the national office building upon those health check foundations.