Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)
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I do not disagree with any of that.

In respect of Met Éireann staying with my Department, I must point out that the organisation is building capacity around medium-term flood forecasting. I think we learned some very expensive lessons in the past few years around the predictability of flooding. We have looked at what other countries can do and what we cannot do in terms of having the expertise and management systems around being able to predict more accurately floods and when they will occur. Obviously, our system will involve a combination of Met Éireann, the OPW and local authorities, which have the primary responsibility in terms of providing emergency flood management and so on. For all those reasons, we think Met Éireann will remain linked to us. The reality is that Met Éireann is pretty much autonomous. The Department funds Met Éireann but the latter predicts the weather and all that goes with that, linking it in with emergency flood management, etc. It is probably a better fit for Met Éireann to remain with us than for it to go to the other Department. There was a discussion on it and one could probably make the argument either way, but Met Éireann is remaining with us.

On the issue of planning and the availability of resource to provide advice to councillors, there is an onus on local authorities to be able to ensure that councillors are given the resources they need, particularly in respect of the process relating to county development plans. I served on Cork County Council many years ago and I am familiar with the development plan process as it then obtained. To be honest, it was not a satisfactory process. I hope it has improved since then. Certainly, councillors will say to me that they get very frustrated in terms of the decisions they have the powers to make. They have real powers in respect of the development plan process and budgeting. These are really important powers. Unfortunately, poor decisions were made in some instances in the past. In the context of lobbying and the interaction between councillors - who must make informed decisions - and their management teams, local authorities must ensure that councillors have the resources available to them to be able to make the right decisions. I take that point. I think it is primarily the responsibility of local authorities to ensure that such resources are in place. More generally - I made this point yesterday when I was responding to parliamentary questions - we are looking at the resources available to councillors in terms of ensuring that they are valued and that they have the resources they need to be able to do the job that people expect of them. People have become much more demanding of public representatives in terms of obtaining immediate solutions, feedback and information. Long gone are the days of people waiting for a clinic in a week or two weeks' time or expecting a response to a letter the following week. They now want immediate responses to questions on social media, e-mail and so on. We are looking at that.

Let us be clear that the An Bord Pleanála is not fully funded by the Exchequer. There is significant non-Exchequer income coming from fees towards costs. The overall pay provision for An Bord Pleanála in 2016 is in the region of €9.5 million - not €14 million.