Victor Boyhan (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for his comprehensive reply. On 29 October 2020, the policy document entitled the Programme for Government: Our Shared Future was published. It talked about planning reform, supporting the planning regulator and IT technologies, which is important. We need to push it on and Covid has brought technology more to the fore.

Last week, I made a trip to the office of An Bord Pleanála to deliver two objections for two people because I could not do them online. I went to the post office on Merrion Row and with my own money took out two €50 postal orders for observations. Then I walked to Marlborough Street where I pressed a doorbell of an office and was told to stick them in the cardboard box as they could not validate them. I said that it was a shame that the people for whom I delivered the objections could not do this online. We do not have the facility, which is a poor show in 2021.

Before I came in here, I conducted a word search on the national planning framework and discovered that neither the term "Plean-IT", which is the big An Bord Pleanála portal that the Minister of State talked about, or the term "e-planning" was mentioned once. Perhaps when we are talking about that document we could incorporate those two objectives and ambitions in the document.