Barry Andrews (Dún Laoghaire, Fianna Fail)

I will take this matter on behalf of my colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. An Bord Pleanála has a key role as an independent planning appeals body in ensuring physical development and major infrastructure projects respect the principles of sustainable development and are planned in an efficient, fair and open manner. In recent years, the board has operated in a challenging environment that saw sustained record levels of appeals and the implementation of the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006. Any examination of the performance of the board in the disposal of cases must be viewed in the context of the record levels of case intake over successive years, from 2004 to 2007, and the assumption of significant new functions under the 2006 Act.

During 2007, An Bord Pleanála received 6,664 new cases, an increase of 12% on 2006, and determined 6,163, which represented a 10% increase on the number determined in the previous year. The high intake of new appeal cases in 2007 coupled with the high level of strategic infrastructure cases received resulted in a significant rise in the workload in hand at the board by the end of 2007 and I am aware that there has been deterioration in appeal disposals within the normal 18-week statutory objective period in 2008.

For its part, the Government has given the board practical support in these challenging times. In 2007, approval was given for a considerable increase in the board's staffing resources and the total authorised staff complement increased by 35.5 to 172. At that time, the board membership also increased from ten to 11 on a temporary basis.

I am advised that with the predicted lower intake of cases in future, the increased resources made available, greater experience with the operation of the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006 and other measures to improve throughput, progress will be made over the coming months towards reducing the turnaround time for cases so that a greater percentage are determined within the statutory objective period.

Let me say a bit more about the Planning and Development (Strategic Infrastructure) Act 2006 as it is important in considering the employment issue raised by the Deputy. The key policy objective of the Act is to provide for a streamlined, single-stage consent process for certain classes of infrastructural development of national importance by statutory bodies and private promoters. In addition to motorways and local authority projects, which were already handled by An Bord Pleanála, this now includes heavy and light rail and metro, other infrastructure requiring environmental impact assessments such as significant airport or port developments, waste infrastructure, and major energy infrastructure such as electricity transmission lines, strategic upstream and downstream gas pipelines, liquefied natural gas facilities, oil refineries and large onshore wind farms.

Since January 2007, the board, which now has a strategic infrastructure division, has received 97 requests for pre-application consultations and arranged 144 meetings, with the promoters in these cases, and concluded 63 pre-application consultation cases and received 16 formal strategic infrastructure applications under the new process. To date, six formal applications have been decided by the board under the Act to which I referred and these have been decided within the statutory period of 26 weeks. All these were the subject of an oral hearing. In view of the size and complexity of projects determined such as the Citywest Luas extension, the natural gas Powergen plant at Toomes, the liquefied natural gas import storage terminal at Tarbert, or the railway line between Clonsilla and Pace, achieving decisions within 26 weeks while ensuring all environmental and public participation considerations are taken into account is a major step forward. It is also an important development from the perspective of employment provision as these types of major projects lead to major employment opportunities in their construction and operation.

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