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

It is asking for ten people plus increased resources. It might be 12 people, but that is the type of number involved in order for it to work with the local authorities. We have granted an extra 500 staff across the local authorities, predominantly for planning, engineering and quantity surveying services because we are gearing up local authorities, mainly around the social housing build programme but also in terms of streamlining planning processes and so on. I believe this will work. It is temporary and after three years, hopefully, we will not need it any more. By that point, we will have streamlined the conventional planning system which will be looking after the vast majority of planning applications because this is only for the large-scale planning applications. When I checked the number of applications coming through An Bord Pleanála around September, there were only 15 in the whole country for planning applications for over 100 units. I hope we will have at least 50 next year and that is what we are gearing up for in terms of An Bord Pleanála. I am confident that we will make sound good decisions that represent good sensible planning, consistent with local area plans, county development plans and city development plans and that we can stand over, but we will do it in a more streamlined manner so that the projects can move ahead quickly.

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