Peter Burke (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Matthews. I am anxious to ensure that the planning authorities are appropriately resourced to meet the demands of Housing for All and the national development plan, NDP. I recognise that changing work demands are being placed on local authorities from the strong terrestrial and marine planning legislation and the monitoring required from development plans.

For that reason, Housing for All refers to the need in action 24.1 to ensure there is sufficient resourcing to meet the scale and ambition in the plan. In particular, reference is made to the need for planning resources to deliver an average of 33,000 units per annum as well as the skills and resources necessary to deliver on urban regeneration and the Town Centre First policy, which relate to both planning and economic departments within local authorities.

This requirement was highlighted at a recent meeting with chief executives of local authorities. I am committed to ensuring that the resourcing is made available through the workforce planning process. The issue goes beyond the funding of posts. It also addresses the need to deal with the building of new skills and increasing digitalisation of the planning service. We received a submission from the Irish Planning Institute on this wider skills and resourcing issue and expect that this will be an important issue to be considered in the context of the planning advisory forum, which I chair and which I expect will have its first meeting in October.

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