Ms Ciara Kellett:

Any of the large projects would generally be accompanied by an environmental impact assessment report, which can run to thousands of pages, and by a Natura impact statement. The Natura impact statement is subject to the habitats directive while the EIA is for the EIA directive. We also have the water framework directive. These are all European directives we must comply with. By their nature, these are complex projects. There are many linear projects, there is tunnelling in the Metro and so on. Members will understand the complexity of the projects and, therefore, the complexity of the environmental assessments that must be carried out. That is our obligation and it is in our Planning and Development Act, which reflects the EU directives. A significant amount of information is supplied by applicants. Our inspectors and the commissioners have to take that into account in making their decision. They are complex and can consist of a significant number of documents - thousands of pages in some cases - and they have to be gone through by the inspector and then by the commissioners making the decision.