Dr. Ciara Brennan:

On practical steps to align or streamline these processes, it would be good to do a discrete study to map out when exactly the requirements are to report on progress or to make these plans and when the consultations will happen.

It would need to be cross-departmental because there are elements of consultations being run by other Departments, not just the Department of the Environment, Climate and Communications. It would be important and useful to map that out to look at where it could be streamlined. It would be useful for the civil servants or departmental officials to be able to manage their workload. I am sure they have ones for their own Departments. It would also be incredibly useful for stakeholders to know at what times it is anticipated there will be consultations. We know the EU timeline now. We know it in advance. We know when these plans will be produced, when they have to be produced and therefore when the consultations are likely to occur. A straightforward piece of work would be to map that out and look at where streamlining or alignment could happen.