Vol. 528 No. 1
308 Mr. Creed asked the Minister for the Environment and Local Government the reason, further to his reply to Parliamentary Questions Nos. 20 and 51 of 25 May 2000, he has not accepted Cork County Council's proposals for the creation of a chief planning officer post. [29753/00]
The post of county or city planning officer exists only in Dublin and Cork cities and Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown, Fingal and South Dublin counties. The post is at the same level as the post of county or city engineer in each case. The proposals for strengthening management structures and abolishing the dual structure currently under discussion in Cork city and the three Dublin counties include the suppression of these posts in favour of the creation of new senior management posts of director of services. Under the new arrangements, the planning function in each of these authorities will be headed up by a director of service at management level who will have responsibility for the management of all of the staff, both technical and administrative, dealing with planning matters. The new structures will have adequate numbers of senior planning staff to deal with technical matters. I support this approach, which is in line with what has been agreed nationally in relation to the post of county and city engineer. It is also in line with the approach outlined by the previous Government in Better Local Government. It would be inconsistent with this approach to agree to the creation of a new post of county planning officer in Cork County Council.
Question No. 309 taken with No. 24.
