Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask the Minister of State to put his professional hat on for a moment. A planning court is something we discussed in another committee in the recent past. I refer to the capacity to refer these matters, in particular when it comes to judicial reviews of decisions made by our planners, specifically the strategic infrastructure planning applications that are going through, of which there are multiple such cases pending and in process to be submitted.

We are expanding our courts, and the Minister of State has been quite forthright in pushing that agenda quite effectively - in his prior role he was very familiar with that. That process is part of the change to and redirection of the planning and development laws we have progressed through these Houses and which will shortly be implemented. I refer to the legal elements of those decisions being made and the consequences and delays that judicial reviews, among other things, can have on such projects.

I go back to my original point on how elements of the Bus Connects projects were shelved or slowed because of that process barrier compared with what we are now seeing. I believe we are now up to contract 6a of the 12 BusConnects projects or routes being rolled out. A more responsive and agile judicial process would be helpful in that regard. The Minister of State might give a brief response to that.