Mr. Philip Jones:

As Mr. Lawlor said, the issue is that they do not have the staff to do those surveys, nor do they have the money. Local authority planning departments have been chronically underfunded for the best part of two decades. I think the regulator was talking about planning application fees being set in 2001 and they have not changed, yet local authorities have many extra tasks. We mentioned in one of our submissions to the Public Audit Forum, PAF, that we need to move towards full cost recovery. It will take a number of years, but the principle of full cost recovery for planning applications needs to be included. We suggest that somewhere in the Bill, I do not know in which section, the principle that planning application fees should go, over a specified time period, to full cost recovery, with the amounts to be decided by regulations, seems to make sense. If the regulator is saying that, most planners would also say it. I note, and it is in our submission, we do not think it is right that public participation fees should increase. You should not have to pay to exercise a democratic right. It was argued by the then assistant secretary back in 2000 - I was at the meeting - that it was an administrative cost to cover dealing with an objection at local authority level. I think it was €20. Equally, it was €200 for an appeal. They are relatively modest but I would not suggest they go up, which is the view we put forward to the PAF.