Mr. Peter Mullan:

My predecessor began the stakeholder engagement approximately two years ago on a quarterly basis. Generally, at the beginning of each quarter, we meet various stakeholders. I have a slide here that shows the details. This morning, for instance, we met Oireachtas Members on housing; tomorrow, we meet business and industry groups; earlier this year, we met environmental groups and State bodies, which would include the IDA, Enterprise Ireland, Uisce Éireann and various different organisations; and next week, we will meet the prescribed bodies.

There have been two important parts to that. One is that it has provided us with an opportunity to set out our case and correct the narrative out there that everything is blocked in planning, and to set out the very significant progress that we have made on our caseload and the developments in that regard. A very important part is the listening part so that, as the previous speaker said, we can hear the stories regarding planning delays and the effect that is having. I have already indicated that representations were made to us as to how we can better deal with the 30-plus housing cases and how they are an important category. We listened to that. We listened to the environmental NGO sector, which wanted our documents in a searchable format. We have listened to other stakeholder engagements relating to how applications are made.

One of the other significant things that arose from the representations concerned appeals. To appeal a case in our organisation, people needed to post it or lodge it in Dublin, given that we are the national planning body and we are based in Dublin. That clearly discriminated against rural constituents, applicants and appellants.

We are hopeful that by quarter 3 of this year, we will have introduced the national appeal system whereby you can appeal from your home once you lodge the appropriate fee. In quarter 3 of this year, that will go live. That came out in the representation from the stakeholder engagement. We came away from that engagement energised, having heard good ideas. I have given three or four examples of the various ideas we have got from stakeholder engagement. We have listened and engaged.

One other matter is how we facilitate people when they come in to look at documents. Previously, you needed to come to Dublin to look at our documents. At the beginning of quarter 3, we will begin a pilot scheme whereby the documents for all larger infrastructural projects will be online. If you want to search for and look at those documents, you will not have to travel to the office from somewhere in the rural west of Ireland. You will instead be able to go online and see that they are available. You will not have to travel to Dublin, which you would have done historically.