Dr. Mary Kelly:

We have gone through the introductions already. I am accompanied by Mr. Conall Boland, deputy chairman of An Pleanála, Mr. Des Johnston, director of planning, Mr. Gerry Egan, director of corporate affairs, and Mr. Chris Clarke, secretary to the board. I have been the chairman of An Bord Pleanála since 29 August 2011. While the annual report is under my guardianship, I was not in An Bord Pleanála for full period it covers.

I have a PowerPoint presentation, as I find it easier to talk about figures and have a few graphs to show members, and I also have an opening statement. I will begin by giving a brief introduction to the mandate; the development of the role of An Bord Pleanála over the years; some new functions that have been given to us; the annual report and the results of it; and the decision-making processes, which will probably cover the entire presentation because that is what the committee asked me to discuss. I will then be happy to answer any questions, along with my colleagues.

On the role of An Bord Pleanála, we are responsible for the determination of planning appeals under the Planning and Development Acts, compulsory acquisition of land by local authorities, the determination of appeals under the water and air pollution Acts and the Building Control Act, and the determination of strategic infrastructure applications, including local authority projects. In addition, we have been given a number of other functions recently with regard to quarries and substitute consents and have some expanded functions under the Planning and Development Acts.

In terms of resources and staffing, the board, like all public sector agencies, must carry on with fewer resources than we had previously. Under the Act, it is envisaged there will be a chairman and up to nine ordinary members. Currently there is a chairman - myself - and seven ordinary board members. In terms of staff, in 2008 we had 182 staff, including board members. The employment control framework number for 2012 will bring that down to 146 by the end of the year; that is the number we have to achieve by the end of the year and we are very well advanced in terms of achieving that. That will represent a reduction of 20% in staffing over that time. During the Celtic tiger years we used the services of many fee-per-case inspectors but that has now been discontinued completely. We do not outsource any of our inspections any more. We also had the retirement of a significant number of senior staff in February 2011. The graph displayed shows the total income better than I can by describing it.

Members will note that there has been a big decrease from 2008 to 2011, with the fall being gradual from 2009 to 2011, in the income received by An Bord Pleanála. The green segment of the bars on the chart represents strategic infrastructure. There was a good deal of that being done in 2008 but little in 2009, and very little fee income was derived from it. It has held up reasonably well in 2010 and 2011, when there were a number of big projects. The blue segment in the bars on the chart shows the Exchequer grant, while the red segment represents ordinary appeal fees. Members can note that our income is composed of the sum of those three elements.

Turning to our expenditure, members will note from the next graph the trend in the fall of salaries from 2008 to 2011. Legal costs are represented in the purple segment. We are price takers in terms of legal costs. We do not take cases. People take judicial reviews against decisions of the board and we have to pay for our legal representation in that respect. We outsource our legal representation. The orange segment represents other operating costs - that is, the ordinary costs of running the organisation - which have reduced dramatically over the last number of years. In terms of our expenditure from 2007 to 2011 - members will be able to follow this better on the trend charts - the total expenditure is down and non-pay expenditure is down, while pay expenditure went up a little at the end of 2011; that was related to retirements. A number of very senior people left the organisation at that stage.

Moving on to planning appeals, normal appeals against planning authority decisions constitute a significant proportion of the work of An Bord Pleanála, representing 84% of all cases in 2011.

There are different categories of appeal and members are probably all familiar with them. Appeals can be first party against refusal or against conditions, third party against a grant or sometimes, a single appeal can consist of both a first party and a third party appeal. We can also take submissions and observations from other parties. The statutory timeframe for the board to make a decision, as set out in the Act, is 18 weeks. I will talk about this a little more later on.

The Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006 provided for applications direct to An Bord Pleanála for projects deemed to be of strategic importance. The conditions that must be fulfilled for something to be deemed to be strategic infrastructure are set out clearly in the Act. The idea was to have expeditious determination of complex applications and in that regard, An Bord Pleanála provides a one-stop shop. It is not necessary for such projects to go to a local authority and then come to An Bord Pleanála on appeal; instead, they come straight to us for a determination. In general they are large, complex projects, and as well as being obliged to comply with all national legislation, they also must comply with European Union directives and generally require environmental impact assessment, habitats assessment and so on. The provisions of the aforementioned Act were introduced in January 2007 and the first decisions were issued in 2008.

Pre-application consultations are provided for under the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act. The primary purpose of pre-application is to decide whether the proposed development constitutes strategic infrastructure development, SID. They are strictly controlled and, as I stated, there are clear criteria for what constitutes SID. A record must be kept of each meeting that is held and the record of such meetings must be published once the pre-application phase is closed. The pre-application meetings and consultations provide an opportunity for the board to highlight issues that may be of concern to the developer. However, applications cannot be predetermined in these meetings and I think people sometimes get a bit frustrated in thinking the board can tell them or give them a nod as to whether a project is likely to go ahead. This simply is not the case in a pre-application meeting. Board members do not attend those meetings as staff of the organisation are delegated to so do. Third parties are not included at that point, and one reason the board cannot give any indication as to the likelihood of a project succeeding is that it has not yet heard from third parties at that stage and does not know what new issues they may bring in. Developers really should take account of the consultation because at these meetings, the technical and administrative staff will raise with them various issues that must be taken into account for the application to go ahead.

The slide now on display gives members an indication of activity since such strategic infrastructure development applications started to come in, during which time the board has received 59 full applications. The Seventh Schedule to the Act sets out a number of categories, namely, energy, environment, transport and health. As the slide shows, we received ten environmental applications, which would be for items such as waste facilities. There were nine applications in the energy category, and seven transport applications, including the DART, the Luas and similar projects. Electricity transmission is a separate category, as are the categories of strategic gas infrastructure, railway orders and others, which include compulsory purchase orders.

The next slide shows how much activity there has been in getting a total of 59 applications before the board. We have had pre-application requests on 231 applications and pre-application processes were concluded on 206 of these. A total of 403 pre-application meetings were held and this all resulted in 59 applications. Of those 59 applications, 42 have already been decided, of which 36 resulted in a grant or an approval and six were refused. Eight applications were withdrawn for various reasons and nine are currently before the board. The percentage of cases that are determined within the statutory guidelines is 55%. As I noted, these cases in general are very complex. Almost all of them are required to have an oral hearing in order that the public can have their say, understand what the project is about and raise any concerns they may have, which will be considered by the board at a later date.

Some new functions have recently come to us in respect of control of quarries and development consent for local authorities where appropriate assessment is required. These have generally come in because of European directives, which, through various European Court of Justice rulings and otherwise, have been found not to have been implemented properly in Ireland in the past. In the context of trying to regularise Ireland's position on these to comply with the European directives, An Bord Pleanála is seeing quite a number of new cases coming to us that we have not had before. For example, I refer to the ordinary retention that used to be available to people for development. If it is affected by environmental impact assessment or the habitats directives, such retentions now are only permissible in exceptional circumstances. Consequently, the usual retention is not really available any more. We are in a whole new area in which we must require remedial environmental impact statements and remedial Natura impact statements in order to comply with European Union directives and, nowadays, with national legislation. This is giving us quite a large amount of work at present. I believe I have figures to display in this regard on the next slide. Another piece of work about which we are in discussion with our parent Department concerns foreshore consents. While it is likely that foreshore consents will come to the board to be decided in the future, it has not happened thus far. Some other potential new work is also under discussion.

I gave members quite a detailed assessment of quarries in my opening statement. While I will not go into it in huge detail here, I can answer questions if members wish. However, I will provide the joint committee with some of the figures. Local authorities must examine all quarries in their area and must issue notices to them if they find certain things. These notices also are to be notified to the board and thus far, between August and the present, we have received 805 notices. Once a quarry operator gets a notice, which could be a notice to cease trading or to carry out various other acts, it can seek a review by An Bord Pleanála of the local authority determination - that is, the planning authority determination. At present, we have 325 review applications in-house. There also is a provision in the Act for an extension of time and 54 such extensions are in front of us. Moreover, there are 17 pre-application consultation requests. An Bord Pleanála has been quite busy in recent times with all of that. At present, we are not sure how many of these applications will turn into substitute consents as time goes on.

As for our overall activity in 2011, as set out in the annual report, our intake of new cases is just over 2,100, which constitutes a fall of 26% from the 2010 figure. The number of cases determined in 2011 is 2,326, which is down by 28% from the previous year. The rate of reversal of planning authority decisions is approximately 31%, which is reasonably in line with the usual rate.

It seems to come out around the same, more or less, every year.

Appeals to An Bord Pleanála, it should be pointed out, represent only 8% of all planning applications. They represented approximately 8% this year and it generally works out in or around that. It is not a significant percentage.

The number of strategic infrastructure cases that we determined in 2011 was ten, and we received 11 new applications. We determined 69 local authority cases and received another batch of 52.

A graph in the PowerPoint presentation shows quite starkly the number of applications over the years, from 2002 to 2011. The grey line shows the intake of cases. One can see that it has dropped dramatically from 6,664 in 2007 to 2,110 this year. It merely represents what happened in the construction sector and in the development world in that time. The number of cases disposed of has clearly dropped as well and one can see that there is also a drop in the cases on hand.

On the statutory time-frames set out, the objective for decision-making is set out in the Planning and Development Acts. As I stated earlier, the objective is to determine cases in 18 weeks for most matters - it is four months for one or two. In some cases there is not any objective.

Previous boards have set the strategic objective of determining 90% of all cases within the 18 weeks. It had not been possible to achieve that in the Celtic tiger years but good progress has been made since then. However, this year there has been a bit of a fall off.

A graph in the PowerPoint presentation will give the committee a clear picture of what was being achieved. In 2004, 85% of cases were determined within the 18-week period. That fell to 23% in 2008 as the numbers coming into the board increased in leaps and bounds. Since then, as the graph shows, it went up to 26%, 63% and, in 2011, reached 81%.

At the end of 2011, a number of board members' contracts came to an end and there was quite a delay in appointing new members. We had new members appointed in May. Some of the existing members had left in November, December and January. For the best part of six months, we were without a full board. Every case before An Bord Pleanála must be decided by the board and cannot be delegated to other staff in the organisation, and that causes a bottleneck at board level. The reduction in numbers at board level has meant that in 2012, the 81% figure for cases determined has fallen, probably to 40% at this part of the year. We now have seven board members and myself as chairperson and we should be able to get those numbers back up towards something more respectable towards the end of the year and into 2013. We felt it was only right to review our objective of achieving 90% within 18 weeks when we knew we could not achieve it and we set an objective of 50% for this year, and we probably will achieve that for 2012.

This is how files are determined within the board. On the life cycle of a file when it comes into the board, the files are received and we must ensure that they are valid applications. They go into processing, which is an administrative part of the organisation. For example, usually the processing will look for the planning authority files. These must be sent on to the board and there is a few weeks when those are being compiled. When the files are complete, they go on to the inspectorate. Each case is assigned to an inspector to examine and make a recommendation. Once that file is signed off by the inspector, it is sent on to board level.

At board level, one board member takes charge of each file and presents it to the other board members. The board generally has a quorum of three although an amendment to the Planning and Development Acts allows for a quorum of two, which we are using as we try to increase our output.

Each case is considered on its own merits. One board member presents the case to the colleagues on whatever board it is and a decision is taken and signed off, and that is the end of it for the board. We do not have an enforcement role or any follow-up role afterwards.

The board sits in a quorum of three. There is a limited number of cases, generally the more simple ones, where it can be two. We cannot decide big and complex cases with two members. The Act requires us to have a specific five-person board for strategic infrastructure development but it allows us, if the case is complex, if it is precedent setting or if the chairperson feels that it requires it, to be accelerated to a full board. Depending on the complexity of the case, we can sit as two, three, four, five, seven or eight members.

When we are considering cases, there can be a little friction between the different policies. The inspector has conducted a full analysis and makes a recommendation. When the board is trying to make a decision on something, obviously, the board then looks at all of that and has to deliberate in context. We must look at all kinds of different policies, such as ministerial guidelines and ministerial policies, and there can be friction between some of those. For example, in environmental conservation policies and energy policies, there can be quite a bit of friction between the two policies. If, for example, there is a renewable energy policy that wants to provide 40% renewable electricity by 2020 and to all intents and purposes that requires wind energy since solar and wave energy are not developed enough, one must balance that against a conservation policy that refer to landscape protection and all kinds of environmental protection. The job of the board is to consider that balance and to make decisions in a balanced way.

Similarly, there are other national policies which at times can seem to conflict with environment and local amenities. In terms of public transport policy, for example, one would like to have higher density development along public transport lanes but when one looks at that contrasting against the existing pattern of development, sometimes there is a balance to be struck there as well. The board must weigh up all of those matters and must set out reasons and considerations for decisions when it is making the decision.

I am sure the committee is familiar with the planning hierarchy in Ireland. These include the national development plan, national spatial strategy, regional planning guidelines, county development plans and local area plans and, more recently, core strategies are coming into play. The board must look at all of those and try to ensure that developments that are coming before it are within these policies.

Turning to the issue of sustainable development, the Planning and Development Acts require both the planning authorities and An Bord Pleanála to be restricted to considering the proper planning and sustainable development of the area. The Acts tell us to have regard to the provisions of the development plan, the provisions of any special amenity orders, European sites or other prescribed areas, relevant Government or ministerial policies, conditions - the types of which are set out in the Acts - which may be applied, and other provisions of the Acts. One can see that when the board is looking at particular cases for development, there are many different policies and hierarchies to be considered.

EU legislation and policy, which I mentioned already, continues to be a major influence. I named a few of the directives in the PowerPoint presentation, but these are the more important ones for planning decisions.

The environmental impact assessment directive, the habitats directive, the birds directive, the water framework directive and the strategic environmental assessment can apply at various times to the cases we consider, as do European Court of Justice judgments on environmental impact assessment and appropriate assessment. As I noted earlier, substitute consent is a way of allowing a limited form of retention for projects that would have been required to comply with these EU directives.

Among the recent trends we are seeing at board level are an increasing number of wastewater treatment plant upgrades because they are often close to special areas of conservation. Previously planning authorities could have implemented such projects without dealing with An Bord Pleanála but the board now has to make the decision where plants are close to or may interfere with special areas of conservation. Water abstraction is another issue which is beginning to come before the board. There are competing requirements when making decisions about water abstractions. The quantity and quality of water in the river must be balanced against the need to provide drinking water supplies. In regard to residential developments, planning authorities should by now have put in place core strategies and most of them have done so. We are required to take account of these core strategies in considering residential developments and zoning. The provision of infrastructure for residential developments is a key issue. Infrastructure could include transportation but is more likely to involve provision of wastewater treatment and sewerage facilities. In respect of transport, the smarter travel policy is coming into play more often and, on the energy side, the commitment to renewable energy and grid strengthening, as required under grid 25, has resulted in a number of applications for grid strengthening projects.

The more hierarchical planning system that seems to be in place at present sets the context for economic, environmental and social objectives. There is a welcome trend toward plan led development, as opposed to project led development. Regional planning guidelines, development plans and core strategies are live areas for the board. Policy guidelines and strategies from the Government have to be taken into account in decision making and An Bord Pleanála seeks to strike a balance between competing objectives. Comments are often made about the board not giving reasons and considerations but I advise those who are looking at particular developments and decisions that come from the board to read the inspectors' reports, the directions and the board's orders. They are very informative and one will see the reasons and considerations behind decisions.