Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats)
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When you consider the housing crisis we have at the moment, and that would be the bulk of the kind of applications that are coming in, whether they are one-offs or multiple units or whatever, not having a full board or a full complement of staff would be unconscionable given the need to get good decisions. I do not think every application that is made for planning is necessarily a good application and that is why they have to be adjudicated on. We want to make good decisions but in a timely way. It is quite astonishing that the number of people was below what was needed to keep up with that 18 weeks. Were warning signals sent to the Department? We could all see things that were taking time. Were warning signals sent to the Department in relation to missing the targets and not having sufficient staff? Obviously, this is a value-for-money thing in the sense that there is a huge cost involved in not fulfilling the need for having good planning decisions in a timely way.