In the eyes of some, Ireland’s planning system is slow and cumbersome and open to frustrating and at times vexatious objections. To others, it has provided valuable safeguards and strong democratic accountability that allows citizens a big say in the planning process.
Against the background of a large housing and vital infrastructure building programme, the Government has attempted to speed up the process through initiatives such as the Planning and Development Act 2024, which is now being implemented in stages and the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce, which seeks greater co-ordination between various agencies to remove bottlenecks.
The new Planning Act introduces mandatory timelines for planning decisions ranging from 12 weeks for large-scale residential developments to 26 weeks for local authority developments and up to 48 weeks for certain strategic infrastructure developments. The 900-page Act received a mixed response when introduced, with Opposition parties and environmental groups suggesting it would lead to more delays and legal challenges. A former chief justice suggested it would lead to references to the European Court of Justice and that delays in seeking legal clarity would undermine the very intention of the Act.
The Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce, meanwhile, which reported late last year, has proposed plans for further legal reform to reduce the incentives for seeking judicial review actions in regard to key infrastructure project planning.
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While there was generally broader support for the taskforce recommendations, An Taisce was highly critical of the report, having also opposed key aspects of the Planning Act.
“These proposed restrictions on access to justice are, in our view, very clearly unlawful, undemocratic, and unfair. They are purportedly being introduced to expedite and facilitate the provision of very much needed critical infrastructure, but in reality, they will only cause more uncertainty, additional litigation, and delay. The changes will primarily restrict the ability of the public, civil society groups and NGOs [non-governmental organisations] to access justice, but the State, developers and other wealthy interests will be essentially unhindered, creating a serious inequality,” says Phoebe Duvall, the organisation’s senior planning and environmental policy officer.
To deliver the infrastructure that we need, Duvall says, instead of compromising a key mechanism for public accountability, there is a need to ensure that public authorities are making robust decisions and that they are properly equipped to do that. “That means focusing on resourcing planning authorities to make lawful decisions efficiently, improving forward planning and plan-making, and ensuring that planning applications are high quality and complete with robust materials and assessments from the start,” she says.
“Public authorities need to be very aware that they can be held to account for their decisions, including before the courts. Without this figurative judge over the shoulder, public accountability could be severely compromised, and it risks lowering the quality of decision-making. Removing this key safeguard increases the risk of environmental harm and lower standards of environmental protection by hamstringing public interest environmental litigation. This will negatively impact on all of our communities and ecosystems. We also have a history of serious governance issues in planning, so restricting judicial oversight in this area would be unwise.”
Gavin Lawlor, president of the Irish Planning Institute, takes a different view. He is broadly supportive of the Planning Act, though he acknowledges the devil will be in the detail as its various sections come into force, and welcomes the findings of the taskforce, which he notes is staying on beyond the delivery of the report to oversee implementation of its recommendations.
“Our planning system is far from perfect, but when you compare it against our European neighbours, we don’t do too badly. Few European countries allow their citizens to get as involved in planning decisions as we do. Some view that as negative, but our view as an institute is that it is a positive in terms of it being very democratic. At the same time, it has led to frustration and there have been abuses of the system over the years. If you want to be obstructive, you can be, and there has been an attempt to root that out, but it is difficult to do that without infringing on people’s rights”
The newly established planning body, An Coimisiún Pleanála, is now fully resourced and is starting to make a difference, Lawlor notes, although this has led to further shortages of planners available to local authorities as experienced staff in the sector have moved to the new body.
“We are definitely moving in the right direction. Have we a perfect system? No. Is it improving? Yes.”
