Cathal Byrne (Fine Gael)

I thank the Minister for coming before us. He was in the Seanad earlier dealing with the same subject. I do not propose to repeat myself too much. I want to drill down to a number of quick questions.

One of the big issues we have teased out here is the notion of perhaps taking some of the large State infrastructure projects that are of critical national importance out of the usual planning process, consent process and infrastructure delivery process, and instead designating them as having some sort of strategic importance whereby they go through a new separate fast track scheme. Is that a concept that the Department and the infrastructure task force is looking at or are they looking at it from the perspective of speeding up through the existing mechanisms for approvals, consent and planning?