Has the tide turned on judicial reviews in planning? Yes, says Sean O’Driscoll, chairman of the Government’s accelerating infrastructure taskforce.
Although new laws to cap litigant legal fees came into force only six weeks ago, figures from An Coimisiún Pleanála suggest the rush to the Four Courts had already stalled last year.
An Coimisiún Pleanála and its predecessor – An Bord Pleanála – have faced some 719 judicial review applications in the High Court since the start of 2020. With the housing crisis worsening and electricity and water networks creaking, this was not exactly a recipe for speedy planning. Quite the opposite. Fast-track housing became one of the great misnomers of our time.
Many critics said this was “unsustainable”, among them Minister for Public Expenditure Jack Chambers, who appointed O’Driscoll last year. “Absent reform, an ever-increasing tide of judicial reviews could drown our courts system, paralyse infrastructure development and prevent the effective administration of justice,” Chambers said in the taskforce report.
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The figures are stark. There were 89 judicial reviews in 2020, 99 in 2021, 98 in 2022 and 93 in 2023. Intensive as the litigation was in those years, it escalated markedly in 2024 when 147 actions were initiated. Another 143 came in 2025, although the run rate slowed as the year progressed and has continued to do so since January.
There were 51 new actions in the first six months of 2026, down from 88 in 2025 and 75 in 2024.
“While the total number of judicial reviews initiated in 2024 and 2025 are similar in number, there was a notable decrease in the latter half of 2025,” said An Coimisiún Pleanála. “Eighty-five new judicial reviews were initiated in January to June 2025, while 58 were initiated between July and December 2025.”
The caps on legal fees apply to proceedings taken under the Aarhus Convention, an international agreement on access to justice in environmental matters that fuelled the boom in Irish cases. Measures allowing those caps were in the Planning and Development Act, signed into law on October 17th, 2024. Another 19 months passed before the deed was finally done. What were they waiting for?
