James Browne (Wexford, Fianna Fail)

Subhead D12 provides funding for additional planning staff in local authorities, which the Deputy alluded to. Local authorities are looking for more ring-fenced staff. I met with all the CEOs, and directors and senior planners, recently in Dublin. We certainly had some important discussions on that. We will continue to engage with local authorities to identify what else we can do to support them. Local authorities, by their very nature, have changed an awful lot in the past two decades. They were primarily housing authorities and water authorities, but they have been asked to do an awful lot in other areas, including culture, tourism, etc., and rightly so. They are on the ground and very well-primed for it. What it can mean, however, is staff being very much stretched in different directions at the moment. That is something we are very much looking at. Housing for All includes a commitment to strengthen the capacity of local authorities to initiate, design, plan, develop and manage housing projects. Significant work has been undertaken to identify the additional staff resources required by local authorities.