Dr. Se?n O'Leary:

There is some capacity in some of the courses. The Technological University of Dublin course, for example, is an undergraduate course and is streamed. Part of the solution is to encourage people who want to obtain an environmental management qualification to obtain a planning qualification instead. There are three-plus-one courses, which involve three years at undergraduate level followed by one year at masters level. If a person does the latter, he or she becomes a planner at the end of it. It is about trying to encourage people who do the three years not to leave to work or obtain another qualification and instead stick with planning. Part of it is about making planning more attractive. Part of the discussion concerns how planning can touch people's day-to-day lives. The Office of the Planning Regulator is doing some work in this area also. There is a capacity issue in some of the planning schools in terms of how many students they can put through given their staff and other resources. There is work ongoing in this space but building up a reliable pipeline involves making planning a more attractive career choice. It is then about having the throughput and people who obtain a geography, political science or other qualification choosing planning as a postgraduate subject if they have not done planning in the first place.

A considerable piece of work is required. Unfortunately, some of the commentary on planning makes it more difficult to choose it as a career or for a parent to encourage a child to do it. However, there is work going on in this regard. The Office of the Planning Regulator, for example, has worked with CareersPortal, which is where the majority of secondary students seem to be getting their information about courses to do. The work is starting but from a low base. A big part of it will involve building up the resources of the planning schools so they can sustainably achieve a throughput of qualified planners.