Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 27 April 2023

Public Accounts Committee

An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2021

9:30 am

Ms Oonagh Buckley:

I will have to check. I understood all of our interconnector applications were determined so far. There is not a live one before us. We are making a substantial change in the structure, in particular, of the inspectorate before the board with the introduction of the new marine and climate change functions. We have appointed a new director of planning to oversee a part of the inspectorate. We are splitting the inspectorate into an area that will deal with the direct applications, if I could put it that way, such as the local area plans, SIDs and so forth, and then we will have a director of planning overseeing applications to be normal planning pieces, including housing and major infrastructure and so forth and land applications as well. We will give that priority. That division of responsibility will help us manage those major applications, which tend to take quite a long time because they are of very great significance, and raise many of those complex issues of the environment and so forth raised by Deputy Ó Cathasaigh.