Frank Fahey (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

If a six-month timescale was allowed for making appeals, both the applicant and the executive or education service provider could delay lodging an appeal. We are trying to ensure we cut out long delays and bureaucracy. This is critical to the ethos of this Bill. A six-month appeals period would delay the resolution further and it would be the applicant who would suffer most from the delay. I point out that if there is reasonable cause for an extension of the timescale, subsection (4) allows for a further period, not exceeding 12 weeks, which would give a maximum of 18 weeks for the appeal. Therefore, this is adequately covered.