John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

In reply to Deputy Crawford, I have already acknowledged that the constant changing of planners is causing difficulty for many applicants and is costing them a great deal of money. I was speaking to people in Kinsale recently who had very unfortunate experiences. They wasted a great deal of their time, energy and money because of this. There was no consistency. There were three different planners dealing with an application. That is not fair and cannot be condoned. It is absolutely necessary to achieve consistency and I will examine ways of ensuring we do that in the new legislation.

Deputy Flanagan appears to be referring to the question of retention. We need to tighten up the system in that regard. Too often in the past people would go ahead and build — not something like a garden shed but a major building — and subsequently apply for retention. It was worth their while because the amount of money they had to pay in fines was not sufficiently punitive. We must ensure there is a disincentive for people to act in that way. There is an onus on us, as a result of European legislation, to deal with this.

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