Planner’s Take, 3 November 2026

Ballyboden ruling and Galway ring road settlement show two ways out of planning litigation

This is an editorial from BPS Planning, issued for discussion only.

Two stories from the courts this week show how differently planning disputes in Ireland can end. In Ballyboden, a site on Taylor's Lane has now been through three permissions and three judicial reviews since 2022 before the High Court finally cleared 402 apartments to proceed. In Galway, the last challenge to the N6 City Ring Road was withdrawn after mediation, with the objector satisfied by commitments on walking and cycling routes. One dispute ended with a judgment, the other with an agreement.

The Ballyboden history is worth recalling. Permission for 486 apartments was quashed in 2022, in part over a failure to consider public transport capacity properly. A second approval, for 401 units, was conceded by the Commission in 2025 on grounds of legal error. The third permission, granted in September 2025 subject to 31 conditions, was challenged on the basis that the inspector and the Commission had wrongly found no material contravention of the county development plan on density. Judge Richard Humphreys rejected that argument, finding that the plan supports higher density within Dublin's existing built footprint, suburbs included, and that the density question was a matter of evaluative planning judgment. He added that, even had there been a legal flaw, he would have declined to quash the permission because doing so would be disproportionate, given the urgent public interest in housing.

That last point matters for practice. Relief in judicial review has always been discretionary, but it is notable to see a court say so plainly in a housing case on a site where the same objectors had previously succeeded. Applicants and their advisers should not read it as a licence for careless decision-making. The discretion will be exercised case by case, and it is far more constrained where EU law is engaged: Irish courts must ensure that the requirements of the EIA and Habitats Directives are effective, so a failure in environmental impact assessment or appropriate assessment is a very different matter from a disputed reading of a density objective.

It is also fair to record the other side of the ledger. The judge noted that the same applicant had brought ten planning judicial reviews, and that six had resulted in permissions being quashed. A success rate of that kind is not evidence of frivolous objection. It suggests decisions were being made with errors a court would not overlook. The first Ballyboden permission fell on transport capacity, which is precisely the type of issue communities are entitled to raise. The Aarhus Convention and the EIA Directive require wide access to justice for the public concerned, at a cost that is not prohibitive, and that is a feature of the system rather than a flaw in it.

The Galway case offers a different lesson. The ring road's first approval, in 2022, was quashed because the Climate Action Plan had not been considered. The remitted application was approved last April, and the remaining challenges have now been resolved through discussion with Transport Infrastructure Ireland and the councils. Shane Foran's concern was about traffic on the Headford, Ballymoneen and Letteragh roads and the safety of people walking and cycling. That is a planning concern, and it appears to have been capable of a planning answer. It is fair to say that commitments to progress the possibility of active travel improvements are not the same as delivered infrastructure, and the test of the settlement will be what is actually built.

Taken together, the two cases point in one direction. The most reliable route to certainty is not a more forbidding court, nor tighter rules on who may sue, though the Planning and Development Act 2024 does tighten the standing rules for some applicants. It is decision-making that is right first time: inspectors' reports that engage clearly with the development plan, with transport capacity and with climate obligations, and authorities and developers who take legitimate local concerns seriously before litigation, not after it. Where a project is genuinely contested, structured engagement or mediation of the kind used in Galway should be considered early, while there is still room to change a design.

Everyone with an interest in Taylor's Lane has waited years for an outcome, the developer included, as have the people who might have been living in those homes by now. Families on the Galway route have, as the Minister of State put it, been on hold for too long. Neither delay served anyone well. The lesson for councils, the Commission and applicants alike is that care at the decision stage costs far less than years in the Four Courts.

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 3 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering the short-term letting planning statement going to Cabinet, a High Court ruling clearing 402 apartments in Ballyboden, the end of legal challenges to the Galway City Ring Road, a new 502-home application in Dundalk, a green space appeal in Tallaght, HAP rental supply and a call to scale up the Land Development Agency.

Short-term letting planning statement goes to Cabinet

Housing Minister James Browne is bringing the National Planning Statement on short-term letting to Cabinet today, setting out how councils should decide planning applications for short-term lets. The threshold-based approach is intended to effectively stop new permissions for short-term lets in towns and cities with populations over 20,000, while in smaller places applications will be considered and existing operators will have two years to get planning consent. Anyone letting a property or rooms for 21 nights or fewer will have to register with Fáilte Ireland, and retention will be acceptable in certain cases for lets operating without consent for seven years or more.

Source: The Journal (3 November 2026)

High Court clears 402 apartments at Taylor's Lane, Ballyboden

Judge Richard Humphreys has rejected Ballyboden Tidy Towns Company's challenge to An Coimisiún Pleanála's September 2025 permission for 402 apartments by Shannon Homes at the former Augustinian seminary on Taylor's Lane, the third permission for the site after two earlier approvals were overturned or conceded. The judge found the applicant had not shown the site was outside a built-up urban area, held that the county development plan supports higher densities within Dublin's existing footprint including suburbs, and said the inspector and the Commission had exercised an evaluative judgment on density. He added that even if there had been a legal flaw he would have refused to quash the permission given the urgent public interest in housing, and provisionally proposed that each side pay its own costs.

Source: The Irish Times (2 November 2026)

Last legal challenge to Galway City Ring Road withdrawn

Active travel campaigner Shane Foran has withdrawn his High Court challenge to An Coimisiún Pleanála's April approval of the N6 Galway City Ring Road after mediation produced commitments to progress walking and cycling facilities on the Headford, Ballymoneen and Letteragh roads, following the earlier withdrawal of challenges by three homeowners. The 18km route, from the end of the M6 to west of Bearna, was first approved in 2022 but that decision was quashed over the failure to consider the Climate Action Plan. Minister of State Seán Canney expects procurement to finish next year, enabling works from mid-2027 and main construction to begin in 2028, with about €1 billion earmarked.

Source: RTÉ News (2 November 2026)

New application for 502 homes at Haggardstown, Dundalk

Marina Quarter Ltd, a Glenveagh Homes subsidiary, has lodged a new large-scale residential development application with Louth County Council for 502 homes, mostly two- and three-bed houses, and a crèche on about 18.5 hectares at Haggardstown and Marshes Upper, with an EIAR and Natura impact statement. The scheme includes a 2.7-hectare central park and interim wastewater storage measures pending Uisce Éireann upgrades at the Coes Road pumping station. Earlier 502-home proposals on the lands were refused on appeal, most recently by An Coimisiún Pleanála in April 2026; submissions are due by 3 December.

Source: Dundalk Democrat (2 November 2026)

Refusal upheld for house on Old Bawn green space

An Coimisiún Pleanála has upheld South Dublin County Council's refusal of a single-storey home on open space at 20A Old Bawn Way, Tallaght, proposed by Kenny Estates as housing for older persons or social housing. The Commission said the appeal had not shown the scheme was community-led housing for older people, social housing or council affordable housing within the development plan policy that allows such housing on open space zoning only where the remaining open space is adequate. Local residents and a councillor welcomed the decision and called on the council to protect the estate's green spaces.

Source: The Echo (2 November 2026)

Just 12 rentals within HAP limits in September, says Simon

The Simon Communities of Ireland's latest Locked Out of the Market report found only 12 properties to rent within any housing assistance payment limits across 16 areas surveyed in September, with none in 11 areas including Cork city, Limerick city centre, Athlone, Sligo, Portlaoise and Waterford city centre. A total of 1,361 properties were available at any price, up 63 per cent on a year earlier. The charity said it had hoped the budget would raise HAP limits, which did not change.

Source: The Irish Times (3 November 2026)

Eamon Ryan calls for Land Development Agency to double output

In an opinion piece, former minister Eamon Ryan, who chaired the European Housing Advisory Board, argues that the Land Development Agency is the one large developer that could scale up quickly, noting about 3,125 homes delivered since 2022 and 13,000 more promised by 2030, mostly cost rental. He points to its sites near Colbert Station in Limerick, Cork docklands and new metro and DART West stations in Dublin as suited to transport-oriented development. He says the main obstacle is the Department of Public Expenditure and calls for housing finance to be planned over 50 years or more.

Source: The Irish Times, opinion (3 November 2026)

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 2 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland. As it is Monday, it covers stories from Friday to this morning, including the new apartment standards going to Cabinet, a refused sports campus near Athenry, 57 apartments refused in Dundalk, a critique of housing policy, student rooms in Limerick and a protected gate lodge in Westmeath.

Apartment standards planning statement goes to Cabinet on Tuesday

Housing Minister James Browne has confirmed that a national planning statement on apartment design standards will go to Cabinet on Tuesday, which he said will provide legal certainty for the new apartment guidelines. The 2025 guidelines, which allow more studio apartments in developments, have faced legal challenges. The amended draft statement, prepared under the Planning and Development Act 2024 with a precautionary strategic environmental assessment, went to a second public consultation that closed on 12 October and will replace the 2025 ministerial guidelines once approved.

Source: RTÉ News (1 November 2026); Department of Housing (14 September 2026)

Galway United and Connacht Hockey training centre refused on appeal

An Coimisiún Pleanála has upheld Galway County Council's refusal of a €13 million training facility for Galway United and Connacht Hockey at Mountain South, Athenry, with two floodlit soccer pitches, a hockey pitch and two single-storey buildings. The council had cited an undesirable precedent in an unserviced rural area, the lack of Uisce Éireann feasibility confirmation and an archaeological impact assessment, and inadequate sight distances. The Commission also noted the site was at risk of flooding and was not zoned or designated for the use; a similar proposal in the area was refused in 2022.

Source: Galway Bay FM (1 November 2026)

57 apartments refused at Racecourse Meadows, Dundalk

Louth County Council has refused permission to Racecourse Road Developments Limited for 57 apartments in three five-storey blocks at Racecourse Meadows, Dundalk, after further information was received in September. The council found the blocks would be overdevelopment, visually dominant and out of character with the area, and that a high standard of architectural quality had not been shown. It also cited unresolved flood risk under the national flood risk guidelines and inadequate public open space.

Source: Irish Independent (30 October 2026)

Lorcan Sirr questions direction of housing policy on prices

In an opinion piece, housing lecturer Lorcan Sirr argues that the Minister's refusal in a recent radio interview to say whether house prices should fall shows a confused housing policy that depends on rising prices. He welcomes the move to restrict turnkey purchases so that councils and housing bodies build more themselves, noting that two-thirds of new council and AHB homes in 2025 came from the market. He points to median house prices of about eight times median full-time earnings.

Source: The Irish Times, opinion (2 November 2026)

Student rooms approved above Thomas Street shop, Limerick

Limerick City and County Council has granted conditional permission to convert the upper three floors of 16 Thomas Street, a Georgian building with a charity shop on the ground floor, from apartments into student accommodation with six en-suite bedrooms and a shared kitchen and living area. A condition restricts the use to student accommodation unless a further change of use is permitted. The planner's report noted the council's preference for student housing on campus, within 1km of a third-level institution or near high-quality public transport.

Source: Limerick Leader (1 November 2026)

Restoration of protected Killua gate lodge approved

Westmeath County Council has granted permission, with nine conditions, to restore and extend a protected gate lodge at Killua, Clonmellon, including a garage, an upgraded entrance and a wastewater treatment system. A key condition requires the derelict lodge to be retained and refurbished rather than demolished and rebuilt. The development contribution of €400.69 reflects a 50 per cent reduction for works to protected structures.

Source: Westmeath Examiner (1 November 2026)

Planner's Take, 1 November 2026

This is an editorial from BPS Planning, issued for discussion only.

There are documents in Irish public life that age gracefully, and there are documents that simply age. The Wind Energy Development Guidelines, published in 2006, belong firmly to the second category. They were written for a country with far fewer turbines, and far smaller ones, before the present climate targets and before machines of the heights now routinely proposed. Twenty years on they remain the guidance to which An Coimisiún Pleanála and every council must have regard when deciding whether a wind farm should be built, and on Friday the Supreme Court reminded us, in the most courteous possible way, exactly what that phrase does and does not mean.

The case concerned seven EDF Renewables turbines at Killeshin Hills and neighbouring townlands in Co Carlow. Two local residents, one of them a farmer living less than a kilometre from the site, and a residents' environmental group had challenged the Commission's permission, arguing in essence that the separation distances between the turbines did not meet the guidelines. The High Court dismissed the challenge last May and refused leave to go to the Court of Appeal, and the Supreme Court has now declined to hear a direct appeal, finding that the case did not meet the constitutional threshold of general public importance or the interests of justice. Its central observation was a simple one: the inspector and the Commission were obliged only to have regard to the guidelines, which they clearly did.

That is a correct statement of the law, and it is worth dwelling on, because a good deal of public argument about wind energy proceeds as though the 2006 document were a statute with numbered rules that a developer either meets or breaks. It is not. Guidance of this kind informs judgement; it does not replace it. A decision-maker who reads it, weighs it and explains why a particular layout is acceptable has done what the law asks, even where a neighbour reads the same paragraphs and reaches a different view. Courts in judicial review are concerned with whether a decision was lawfully made, not with whether the judge would have made it, and the Carlow ruling is a clean illustration of that discipline.

But a legally sound decision made under stale guidance is not quite the same thing as a sound system. The Department of Housing published draft revised guidelines in December 2019, and they were never finalised. The 2024 Planning and Development Act has since introduced National Planning Statements to replace ministerial guidelines, and in a written Dáil reply in October the Minister said that a statement on onshore wind is being prepared with the climate department, that the highly technical work on noise is now substantially complete, and that a strategic environmental assessment and public consultation will follow. No date has been given. In the meantime, he confirmed, the 2006 guidelines remain in force.

The scale of what is coming makes the delay harder to defend. In the same week as the Carlow judgment, an application for the Slievegrine Renewable Energy Development, twenty-three turbines with tip heights of 170 to 185 metres between Dungarvan and Youghal, went directly to the Commission as strategic infrastructure, with a decision expected by October 2027. Projects of that size will be assessed against guidance drafted for a quite different generation of machines, and everyone involved, the developer, the Commission, the council making its submission and the families living in those townlands, would be better served by rules that plainly fit the thing being proposed.

There is a respectable counter-argument, and it should be heard. Guidance written in haste can be worse than old guidance applied with care, and the Commission and its inspectors have developed a substantial body of practice on noise, shadow flicker and setback through two decades of casework. The environmental assessment and consultation the Minister describes are not bureaucratic ornaments; they are requirements of European law, and a statement rushed past them would invite exactly the kind of litigation everyone says they want to avoid.

Even so, the conclusion seems hard to escape. The Carlow decision shows that the courts will uphold a decision properly reasoned under the existing guidelines, and that is a reassurance to applicants. It offers rather less to communities, who are entitled to know that the standards applied to a turbine outside their window were written with turbines of that size in mind. A clear, current and properly assessed national statement would serve both, and would allow the argument about wind energy to be conducted on the merits of individual sites rather than on the age of the rulebook.

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 1 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering mounting criticism of recent changes to social housing delivery, signs that housing output may be turning a corner, a Supreme Court refusal to hear an appeal over Carlow wind turbines, a developer's appeal against a rival's Ballincollig scheme, a 23-turbine application in west Waterford, 59 homes proposed in Tullow and a revised graveyard extension plan in Waterford city.

Pressure grows on Housing Minister over turnkey and housing body changes

Housing charities, approved housing bodies and economists have publicly criticised Minister for Housing James Browne over plans to sharply reduce the number of new homes bought by councils and housing bodies, with builders arguing that many private schemes depend on those sales to get finance and that councils' planning departments will need heavy investment to design projects themselves. The Department of Housing has denied reports that housing bodies were told to cap delivery at 5,000 homes a year, and the Minister is due to meet the Housing Alliance. Sinn Féin's Eoin Ó Broin has called the official denials disingenuous, according to the Irish Independent.

Source: The Journal (1 November 2026)

Five signs the housing crisis may be turning a corner

RTÉ's economics editor notes that completions between July and September were up 10.4 per cent on last year, with almost 27,000 homes finished so far in 2026 and analysts expecting 39,000 to 40,000 by year end, compared with 36,000 in 2025. First-time buyer mortgages are up 9 per cent, listings on MyHome rose 12.5 per cent in September, and annual price growth has slowed from about 10 per cent to 5 per cent. Output nonetheless remains well short of the 50,000 to 60,000 homes a year said to be needed, and Goodbody's Dermot O'Leary calls for faster rezoning of residential land, coordinated utility connections and further planning reform.

Source: RTÉ News (31 October 2026)

Supreme Court refuses appeal over Carlow wind turbines

The Supreme Court has refused leave for a direct appeal by two local residents and the Rural Residents Wind Aware and Environmental Group against An Coimisiún Pleanála's permission for seven EDF Renewables turbines at Killeshin Hills and neighbouring townlands in Co Carlow, after the High Court dismissed their challenge in May. The objectors had argued that the separation distances between turbines did not comply with the 2006 Wind Energy Development Guidelines. The court found the High Court had not misapplied the guidelines, observing that the Commission was only required to have regard to them, which it clearly did.

Source: The Irish Times (30 October 2026)

O'Flynn Group appeals rival's 300-home scheme

The Business Post reports that O'Flynn Group has appealed to An Coimisiún Pleanála against a 300-home development by a rival developer and has complained about its treatment by the council. Cork City Council granted MOS Homes permission in September for 300 homes at Carriganarra and Carrigrohane in Ballincollig, over an objection from O'Flynn Construction, whose own plan for 1,150 homes at nearby Maglin was refused in August pending delivery of the South Ballincollig transport corridor and is also under appeal.

Source: Business Post (31 October 2026)

23-turbine Slievegrine wind farm lodged as strategic infrastructure

Slievegrine Ltd has applied directly to An Coimisiún Pleanála for the Slievegrine Renewable Energy Development, 23 wind turbines with tip heights of 170 to 185 metres across townlands between Dungarvan and Youghal, Co Waterford. The proposal also includes a 110kV substation, a 220kV loop-in substation and an underground 220kV connection to the existing Knockraha to Cullenagh line. As a strategic infrastructure development, the decision rests with the Commission, with Waterford City and County Council invited to make a submission, and a decision is expected by October 2027.

Source: Waterford Live (29 October 2026)

59 homes proposed off the Rathoe Road, Tullow

Tidefall Limited has applied to Carlow County Council for 59 homes off the Rathoe Road in Tullow, on a site identified as Phase 2 at Cuanahowan, with access through the existing Cuanahowan estate. The plans include car parking, bin storage, open space and landscaping. The application was at pre-validation stage, and a decision is due by 17 December.

Source: Carlow Live (30 October 2026)

Revised plan lodged for Ballygunner cemetery extension

The Parish of St Joseph, St Benildus and St Mary's has lodged a fresh application to extend St Mary's Cemetery at Ballygunner, Waterford city, this time to the east of the existing graveyard, with new internal roads, paths and car parking. An earlier proposal from January 2025 to extend the cemetery to the south was refused by Waterford City and County Council over ground conditions, traffic and land zoning.

Source: Waterford Live (30 October 2026)

Planner's Take, 31 October 2026

This is an editorial article from BPS Planning, issued for discussion only.

There is a particular kind of planning document that nobody outside the profession ever reads and almost everybody inside it has written: the environmental impact assessment screening report. It runs to dozens of pages, costs real money, and in the overwhelming majority of ordinary housing schemes it concludes, after a careful march through soils, water, biodiversity, traffic and cultural heritage, that a full assessment is not required. The Department of Housing has now published draft regulations under which housing schemes of up to 250 homes would no longer need formal screening at all, and it is worth asking, calmly and without slogans, what is actually being given up and what is being gained.

What officials have taken to calling a traffic light system would work like this. Up to 250 units is green, and no formal screening is needed; between 250 and 750 is amber, and the scheme is screened; above 750 is red, and a full assessment is mandatory. Easy to miss is that the point at which assessment becomes compulsory, 500 homes for more than twenty years, would rise by half. Similar exclusion thresholds are proposed for overhead electricity lines, private roads and wastewater treatment plants below 10,000 population equivalent, which should help Uisce Éireann with the unglamorous upgrades so many towns are waiting on. None of it applies until Part 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 is commenced, which awaits the end of the council work-to-rule.

What most of the coverage has skated past is that green does not mean unexamined. Section 225 of the 2024 Act requires the council, for any scheme below an exclusion threshold, to examine its nature and location and to move to screening if the possibility of significant effects cannot be excluded. What disappears is the obligation on the developer to commission and submit the formal screening material, not the obligation on the State to look.

The Government's case is that this removes duplication. Minister of State John Cummins argues that environmental screening already happens when land is zoned, and that the lack of exclusion thresholds meant everything was being screened. The second claim is fair in practice, if not quite in law: the 2001 Regulations already required only a preliminary examination below the 500-unit line, but many applicants, knowing where judicial reviews are won and lost, have long submitted full screening reports as a matter of course. A study published with the Department's consultation found that fewer than one per cent of schemes below 250 homes ended up with a full assessment. Engineers Ireland, the Chartered Institute of Building and Cork Chamber all supported exclusion thresholds in the consultation, though the engineers wanted sensitive locations and cumulative effects still covered and the builders' institute wanted councils resourced to do the work. Sean O'Driscoll of the Accelerating Infrastructure Taskforce has compared Ireland's 2022 tally with 217 in Germany and eight in Denmark, though the Irish figure has been reported as both 257 assessments and 237 screenings, which is not a small difference in a debate about precision.

The objections deserve the same seriousness. Eoin Ó Broin of Sinn Féin spoke of a sense of déjà vu about light-touch regulation, and the Green Party's Malcolm Noonan has warned that flood plains, hedgerows and archaeology could be overlooked. Here the law is not on anyone's side so much as on its own. Zoning-stage assessment under the SEA Directive is expressly without prejudice to project assessment, and the European Court of Justice has held, against Ireland itself over peat extraction and land reclamation, that a threshold based on size alone, blind to nature and location, exceeds what the Directive permits. More recently it found Vienna's urban development thresholds set so high that most projects were excluded in advance. The new examination is what keeps the Irish system on the right side of that line, which is why it cannot be allowed to become a formality. Appropriate assessment under the Habitats Directive, the regime behind so many recent challenges, is untouched, and every scheme must still be screened for it.

My view is that the change is sensible in principle, and that its legality and its value rest on one thing: a nature and location examination done properly, by councils with the ecologists and resources to do it. If that happens, few outside the consultancies will mourn the routine screening report. If it does not, the time saved at the front of the process will be lost again at the back, in the courts, where Irish housing has already spent too much of the last decade.

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 31 October 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering draft rules to exempt housing schemes of up to 250 homes from environmental screening, confirmation that the levy and water connection waiver ends this year, a refusal on density grounds at St Ann's Hill in Cork, 30 homes refused in Longford over wastewater capacity, an appeal over apartments in Castlebar and the delayed rural housing planning statement.

Draft rules would exempt schemes of up to 250 homes from EIA screening

The Department of Housing has published draft regulations under which housing developments of up to 250 units would no longer need environmental impact assessment screening, schemes of 250 to 750 units would be screened and a full assessment would be required above 750 units. Exclusion thresholds are also proposed for overhead electricity lines, private roads and wastewater treatment plants serving fewer than 10,000 population equivalent. The changes will take effect with the commencement of Part 4 of the Planning and Development Act 2024, which is not expected until the work-to-rule by council staff ends.

Source: RTÉ News (30 October 2026)

Minister rules out extending development levy and water connection waiver

Minister for Housing James Browne has said the waiver on development levies and Uisce Éireann connection charges, introduced in 2024, will not be extended beyond the end of December, so only homes finished by the end of 2026 will benefit. His comments followed Central Statistics Office figures showing 26,833 homes completed between January and September, compared with 24,256 in the same period last year. Opposition parties point out that the Government's suggested figure of about 40,000 homes this year remains well short of the 50,000 a year backed by the Housing Commission.

Source: RTÉ News (30 October 2026)

80 homes at former Hydro site in Tower refused over low density

An Coimisiún Pleanála has refused permission to OMD(C) Ltd for 55 houses and 25 apartments on the 11-hectare site of the former St Ann's Hydropathic Establishment at St Ann's Hill, Tower, Co Cork, overturning Cork City Council's June grant and its own inspector's recommendation. The scheme's density of 17.3 dwellings per hectare compared with a development plan minimum of 35 per hectare, and the Commission found the site's archaeological and heritage constraints did not justify such a departure. It concluded the scheme would be an inefficient and unsustainable use of zoned, serviced land.

Source: Irish Examiner (30 October 2026)

30 homes refused at Stonepark, Longford, over wastewater concerns

Longford County Council has refused permission for 30 homes, 24 three-bedroom and six two-bedroom houses, near the Silver Birches estate at Stonepark, Longford. Uisce Éireann and seven other parties made submissions, and local residents raised concerns that the existing sewage treatment plant serving the estate was already at capacity, along with water pressure, surface water and traffic issues. The decision was made on 20 October after further information was received in September.

Source: Longford Live (28 October 2026)

Castlebar Coal Bunker apartments refusal appealed

Developer Harold Conway has appealed Mayo County Council's refusal of permission for 12 apartments at the former Coal Bunker site at the junction of the Pontoon and Turlough roads in Castlebar, opposite the Sacred Heart Hospital. It is the council's second refusal on the site, following an earlier proposal for 19 units, and it found that residential use would materially contravene the site's Enterprise and Employment zoning in the Castlebar Town and Environs Local Area Plan. A decision on the appeal is due before the end of February.

Source: Connaught Telegraph (30 October 2026)

No date yet for new rural housing planning rules

The Department of Housing has confirmed that the draft Sustainable Rural and Gaeltacht Housing National Planning Statement, whose policy direction the Government agreed on 30 June, is still undergoing environmental assessment and has yet to go to public consultation. The statement is expected to address issues such as ribbon and backland development and local-needs criteria, and councils will have to review their development plans where they are significantly inconsistent with it. No date has been given for consultation, final Government approval or implementation.

Source: Selfbuild (30 October 2026)