Dr. Se?n O'Leary:

I can come in on that if it is all right. Our figures are better. We accredit the three planning schools in the Republic. We are looking at probably 70 to 75 graduates coming out this year and then we are into the 50s for next year. That is assuming everybody graduates and does not defer and assuming that everybody goes into planning. Then, obviously, it is about building up competence. From our point of view, it takes at least two years' post-qualification experience before a person has a level of competence.

I have been asked to advertise jobs to our members for planning authorities in Australia that are also looking for people. We have mutual recognition agreements with the planning institutes in Australia and New Zealand and probably one forthcoming for France. It is an issue across the English-speaking world, however.

The Chairman mentioned that the board is looking to grow to 300 staff. Representatives from the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, appeared before the committee and talked about how it was looking for 30 staff. I think it is recruiting nine presently. The board is recruiting inspectors now. That is causing downstream issues whereby there are simply not planners and other specialists in the system. As the Chairman said, everyone is trying to avail of the marine spatial planning, MSP, opportunities as well and trying to work with the planning schools to upskill there.

One practical thing I would point to about getting people from overseas is that we have been told anecdotally about the attractiveness of some local authority posts, particularly maybe those of graduate, assistant and executive planner in local authorities. People are coming in at the bottom of the scale but they are coming from the UK, for example, with significant experience. It just does not add up to them to come in at the bottom of some of those scales with a significant amount of experience that is not recognised. That seems to be a practical barrier to people coming back.