Thomas Gould (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)
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I was listening there intently and I thank the witnesses for their contributions. Something which they discussed earlier was resources and staffing. We know from meetings which we have had that local authorities are short at least 500 in their planning sections, if not more. A point was made about the whole area of An Bord Pleanála and local authorities. Surely we are looking at a major blockage here if they cannot get staff. An Bord Pleanála has been doing recruitment. However, in regard to local authorities, we have had the city and county managers in here saying that they are finding it very hard to recruit the staff with the skills. We have a housing crisis right now. How are we going to manage all of this? Are there any suggestions? Is this something on which the colleges need to work with the Department, or that the Minister needs to do something about it? Until we fix that problem, many of the problems cannot be fixed.