Austin Hughes

And just doing my sums this morning, if the UK did the same amount as Ireland, rather than 66, it would have about 800.

So we're about 12 times as likely to have high court challenges on planning as our near neighbours.

Yeah, well, same legal system.

But again, the conference heard that there's differences that it's harder to get.

It doesn't allow for third party objections in the UK.

And getting your legal costs paid is also trickier in the UK.

Again, Mr. O'Driscoll talked about

some planning applications for major projects running to 30,000 pages.

And he said this leads to loads of potential pitfalls along that.

On a slightly more optimistic note, at the same event, the Minister for Public Expenditure

Jack Chambers said that planning reforms due to come out in future weeks are likely to be more important than who gets what in Budget 2026.

So let's wait and see.

But the scale of the problem, very evident in these sort of numbers.

There will be a lot of yellow lights and possibly deep amber, maybe red lights.

But before we actually see those, the metro running, I think, you know, fingers crossed.

Yeah, much better news here from AIB's Purchasing Managers Index.

The growth in activity and new business in the services sector was the fastest in four months in September.

Employment also improved.

Now it's not across the entire sector.

A lot of the heavy lifting done from by the technology, media and telecoms sector that had its best month in two years.