Ms Maria Graham:

In the context of the review, the way in which the planning system supports both housing and infrastructure breaks down into two issues. One relates to planning for an area and place-making, which is part of community engagement. The pieces I mentioned earlier relate to the public acceptability of many of the policies. The Senator talked about de-risking but to bring planning forward, we must ensure we maximise the engagement of the public in the plan-making process in order that there will be clarity at the earliest stages about what the development objectives are for that area. That is one measure that would bring a significant improvement to planning.

The other is the question of certainty. As we come to talk about the consent process more, one of the issues we are dealing with relates to timelines. We have introduced very specific timelines for large-scale residential development, so that is an area of exploration.

Local authority elected members sit on the planning advisory forum, which has been the medium of our engagement. The forum has had a number of meetings and the Association of Irish Local Government, AILG, is represented there. We would be happy to engage further, but that is the engagement process we have at the moment.