The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Dick Roche T.D., has welcomed the publication by the Irish Planning Institute (IPI) of its 2007 Census of the Planning Profession in Ireland.
The report is the latest in the Institute's series of survey reports on the planning system. The last survey was carried out in 1996.
The Minister said that - "Planning provides the arena through which Ireland's economic, social and environmental objectives can be met in an integrated and sustainable way. It is of fundamental importance to the quality of people's lives. Over the past decade, overwhelming demographic and economic changes have brought unprecedented challenges for the planning system. I believe that the planning system is meeting these challenges.
"However, in order to continue to meet these challenges, we need to deliver a more responsive, open and transparent planning system that is well administered and is customer orientated. In this context, I welcome the IPI Census. The findings will provide a very useful input into our assessment of the overall efficiency and effectiveness of the planning system and its capacity to deliver."
The Minister also welcomed the Institute's acknowledgment that significant progress had been made in improving the planning system in recent years - in terms both of the allocation of resources to planning authorities and An Bord Pleanála, as well as in relation to overall efficiency and transparency in the planning system.
In terms of staffing levels, the Census found that the total numbers of staff employed in Local Authority planning departments had more than doubled since 1997, while there has been a 300% increase in the number of professional planners across all planning authorities.
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