Local authorities across the country experienced a deluge of planning applications in the last few weeks of December as developers rushed to meet planning deadlines for a series of property-related tax reliefs.
Yesterday councils in the upper Shannon region reported a tenfold increase in planning applications in the four days before Christmas, as property owners and developers tried to make the deadline for the special Rural Renewal tax break.
This scheme covers counties Longford and Leitrim, along with parts of counties Roscommon, Cavan and Sligo.
To qualify for the scheme, which comes to an end in July of next year, planning applications had to be made by last Friday.
Leitrim County Council, the smallest local authority, took in more planning applications in four days than Dublin City Council usually does in two weeks.
Across the country planning departments were reporting rates double that for a normal week, with planning deadlines of December 31st on a raft of other tax breaks, including hotels, town renewal schemes, student accommodation and accommodation above retail outlets.
Mr Ciarán Tracey, senior planner with the Leitrim authority, said that in the four days before Christmas Eve the council received 268 applications.
The following Thursday it received 55 further applications. The council usually takes in an average of 20 applications a week.
This compares with an average of 123 in Dublin City Council, one of the largest planning authorities in the country.
In nearby Longford County Council, a senior planner, Mr Donal Mac an Bheatha, said the planning office opened specially on the two days before New Year's Day to deal with the huge demand. He expects the number of applications for 2004 to reach 1,400, which is nearly double the number for 2003, and with nearly half of those applications having come in the last few weeks of the year.
Officials in Roscommon also reported receiving nearly 100 applications in the week before Christmas, five times the average of 20.
During the same period, Cavan County Council received 277 applications, compared with an average of 40 per week during 2003.
In Dublin City Council, the planning section received 225 applications during Christmas week, compared with an average of just over 120 for most other weeks.
Mr Brian Kirk said many of the planning applications were for hotel schemes and accommodation above shops, two of the tax incentive schemes with December 31st deadlines.
They included hotels in the Docklands, Lower Great George's Street and Clancy Barracks.
Cork City Council officials also said they were "swamped", having received 63 applications during Christmas week, which is three times the average weekly rate.
Christmas is traditionally one of the busiest periods for planning applications, as it was considered that potential objectors had less time to lodge objections as observations had to be lodged within five weeks of the application. This was changed in legislation introduced four years ago, and the Christmas period is no longer counted in terms of the limit for objections.
Despite the record numbers of planning applications, councils will be legally obliged to make decisions within eight weeks on all of them.
Objectors have until early February to make submissions.