Mr. Gerard Brady:

I will take the Deputy's question on the courts first. Ireland has fewer judges than most of the rest of Europe does and it is a major challenge in getting things through the courts. We spoke to a group of our Swedish colleagues who were recently in Ireland to look at the planning and consenting system and see what they could learn from it. I am afraid they did not leave with many positives. They did say one thing, however, which we took a lot from. Where they go to the courts for projects, the timeline is maybe six months. Here, we are talking about maybe two years, and that might be after spending two or three years in the planning system before that and having to go back into it. There is an enormous challenge there.

There is also a big challenge, as we have said, on the consenting side. The new EPA Bill is important in progressing this. There are things in that Bill that will speed up the consenting process and getting that Bill through will be important to that. In general, however, our timelines are multiple times longer than those in other European countries, although not in respect of the number of areas where someone can appeal against a project or where a project could be delayed. It is not that we have more steps but that the steps take much longer in between to get through the process.