Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What I have said to chief executives is that if they have a human resource or people power issue that is preventing them from getting on with meeting the targets that we need to set for the new ambition, I need to know about it, and we will speak to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to see if we can get them the people they need. Certainly, from my Department's perspective, we may well need to take on more people in specialist areas so that we can send down teams of engineers, quantity surveyors, designers and architects to sign off on drawings and costings, as opposed to having letters going back and forth, which may take months. The Deputy will have experience of this from the Department of Education and Skills, where drawings come back from school projects, amendments are made, the drawings are sent back, there are further amendments, and it goes on and on. If there is a crisis or a safety issue and the school needs to be built quickly, a Minister for Education and Skills can fast-track things and make them happen more quickly by sending a design team down to sign off on things to move the process on. That is the kind of practical intervention that I want my Department officials to be involved in with local authorities so we can move through the approval stages in a more timely manner than we have been doing so far.

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