Irish Planning History: From No System to Compulsory Permission

Most people who deal with Irish planning meet it first as a prohibition. You may not develop land, save under and in accordance with a permission. That rule, now so familiar that it feels like weather, is younger than many practising planners. It took statutory form in the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963, and it began to bind the country on 1 October 1964. The question this piece tries to answer is how Ireland moved, in a little over two centuries, from a world in which almost nobody needed the State's leave to build, to one in which nearly every material change on land does. The arc is not a smooth progress from darkness into light. It is a story of private estates and a Georgian street commission, of Victorian sanitary law, of a civic whirlwind that never became a statute, of an adoptive Act that almost nobody finished using, and finally of a mandatory system that was, by design, far more controlling than anything that had gone before.

What existed before a planning system

Ireland did not wait for a Planning Act to shape its towns. In Dublin the most famous pre-statutory instrument was the Wide Streets Commission, established by Act of Parliament in 1757 as the Commissioners for Making Wide and Convenient Ways, Streets and Passages in the City of Dublin. Dublin City Archives still hold its minutes, maps and architectural drawings. The Commission could acquire property by compulsory purchase, demolish it, lay out new streets and lease building lots to developers. It created Parliament Street, widened Dame Street, built Carlisle Bridge (now O'Connell Bridge), and laid out Westmoreland Street and D'Olier Street. It also regulated façades along the new lines: height, terrace rhythm, materials and the spacing of windows. Doors and fanlights were left freer, which is why Georgian Dublin can look uniform from a distance and individual up close. After the Union the Commission's money dried up; it was abolished under the Dublin Improvement Act 1849 and its powers passed to the municipal corporation from 1851. Parallel to that public machinery ran the private planning of the great estates, Gardiner and Fitzwilliam among them, which fixed so much of the city's street pattern without any modern development plan.

Nineteenth-century statute law then gave local authorities sanitary and housing powers rather than a general right to say yes or no to development. The Housing of the Working Classes Acts allowed clearance of unhealthy areas and the provision of dwellings. What Ireland did not get was Britain's first general town-planning statute. The Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act 1909 empowered English and Scottish authorities to make town-planning schemes, then ended with a short exclusion that still surprises students: "This Act shall not extend to Ireland." Michael J. Bannon's account of the genesis of modern Irish planning puts the exclusion in its legislative context: the planning clauses rode on a housing Bill that was broadly similar to the Housing of the Working Classes (Ireland) Act 1908, so Ireland was left out (Bannon, p. 191). The planning ideal nonetheless crossed the Irish Sea. Bannon records that a "vibrant and promising town-planning movement" existed in Dublin until 1916 (Bannon, p. 191). When Irish reformers spoke of town planning in the 1910s, they were arguing for a power their neighbours already had and they did not.

The gap: Geddes, the H.T.P.A.I. and a city without a statute

That gap is where the story thickens. Late nineteenth-century Ireland had seen gradual improvement in urban sanitary law, municipal reform and working-class housing, but Bannon's verdict is that it remained "piecemeal and largely unco-ordinated" and "devoid of any overall organising plan" (Bannon, p. 191). Dublin's death rates stayed high; typhoid epidemics marked the 1880s and 1890s; among the labouring classes some two-fifths of deaths were of children under five (Bannon, pp. 191–192). At the turn of the century at least 20,000 Dublin families still occupied one-room tenements, and voluntary and artisan-dwelling companies could not build enough houses at rents the average workman could pay (Bannon, p. 192). Planning, when it arrived as an idea, was still almost exclusively a way of talking about the housing question (Bannon, p. 192).

The catalyst was Patrick Geddes. In 1911, at the invitation of the Viceroy and Lady Aberdeen, he brought his Cities and Town Planning Exhibition to Dublin. It opened at the Royal Dublin Society in Ballsbridge from 24 May to 7 June, directed by Geddes with Frank Mears as assistant, and was later re-erected at Trinity College during the Royal Institute of Public Health Congress of 15–21 August (Bannon, pp. 196–197, 200). Attendance at the first showing was put at about 160,000 (Bannon, p. 199). Geddes preached "conservative surgery" of derelict corners and small gardens rather than Haussmannian clearance (Bannon, pp. 199–200). One direct consequence was a campaign, with Nora Geddes and the Women's National Health Association, to turn derelict sites into children's gardens (Bannon, p. 201). The other was institutional: the Housing and Town Planning Association of Ireland (H.T.P.A.I.), formed on 30 September 1911 with its inaugural meeting on 27 November, Lady Aberdeen as president and offices in Ely Place (Bannon, pp. 201–202).

The Association's first object was to educate public opinion. A Cork branch followed in February 1913. It urged civic surveys in the Geddesian manner - maps, air photographs, relief models, traffic diagrams - and pressed municipalities by persuasion because the 1909 Act gave them no planning power (Bannon, pp. 203–204). Lectures ran through Belfast, Cork and Dublin. In the spring of 1914 John Nolen and Raymond Unwin spoke on the replanning of Dublin; Unwin urged the city to plan "on a grand scale" and "as though no private interests were involved" (Bannon, pp. 205–206). An H.T.P.A.I. conference at the R.D.S. on 23 October 1912 resolved that urban authorities face "the urgent problems of housing and the economic planning of urban and other areas throughout Ireland" (Bannon, p. 206).

Then came the shock that made the argument concrete. In 1913 the collapse of a Dublin slum street helped force a Departmental Committee of Inquiry into housing conditions. The figures Bannon draws from it are still hard to read lightly: in 1911 some 22.9 per cent of Dublin's population lived in one-roomed tenements; by 1913 there were 518 "third-class" tenements unfit for human habitation, holding 6,831 families (22,701 persons), with tens of thousands more in only marginally better "second-class" rooms; roughly 60,000 people needed rehousing (Bannon, p. 207). The committee favoured suburban building on "virgin soil" on the outskirts rather than reoccupation of the old streets (Bannon, p. 208). E.A. Aston, a founder of the H.T.P.A.I., told the inquiry that Dublin lacked a "general plan of city development" and proposed a joint housing authority for city, townships and county, with a civic survey of "the whole natural community of Dublin" (Bannon, p. 209). Geddes gave evidence for the Women's National Health Association; he condemned segregated rows of two-roomed dwellings as future slums, praised small open spaces over grandiose parks, and argued that many necessary improvements required "an extension of powers by means of an improved Town Planning Act" (Bannon, pp. 210–212). J.F. McCabe of the Local Government Board, in a memorandum that The Irish Builder and Engineer applauded, insisted that building before a civic survey and town plan was a "grave misfortune" (Bannon, p. 213).

Momentum, not statute, followed. In January 1914 the Aberdeens and the H.T.P.A.I. launched a Civic Exhibition and an international competition for a plan of Greater Dublin. The exhibition ran for six weeks from 15 July to 31 August 1914 at the Linenhall Buildings and the grounds of the King's Inns; opening day saw some 9,000 visitors; Abercrombie later recalled that he had "never seen anything more remarkable in all my life," while The Irish Worker dismissed it as "Lady Microbe's Civic Farce" (Bannon, p. 216). A broadly based Civic Exhibition Committee drew in the H.T.P.A.I., the R.I.A.I., the engineers, the Chamber of Commerce and others; Geddes was the prime mover and Nolen the manager (Bannon, p. 215). From that committee grew the Civics Institute of Ireland, which on 30 June 1916 formally took over the H.T.P.A.I.'s functions and remained active for almost thirty years (Bannon, p. 215). Among the Institute's later achievements Bannon lists the Dublin of the Future competition, civic surveys of Dublin and Cork, housing weeks and conferences - and, with the R.I.A.I., the promotion of a Town Planning and Rural Amenities Bill in the Senate (Bannon, p. 215).

On 10 August 1914, on the Lord Mayor's proposal, Dublin Corporation voted 27 to 8 to have Patrick Geddes and Raymond Unwin review its central clearance schemes at Beresford Street, Church Street, Ormond Market and Trinity Ward (Bannon, p. 221). Their report, sent from Hampstead on 26 September, pressed lower densities, play space and garden-suburb solutions, including Marino (Bannon, pp. 222–224). On 5 October Councillor W.T. Cosgrave moved that the schemes proceed as planned, and Bannon's judgment is that the report had little effect on them (Bannon, p. 226). The competition itself, with a £500 prize given by the Marquis of Aberdeen and Temair, asked for a Greater Dublin plan taking in Howth, Glasnevin, Ashtown, Dundrum and Dalkey, and for proposals to house the Inquiry's 14,000 new dwellings alongside communications and metropolitan improvements. War delayed adjudication until 1916. The prize went to Patrick Abercrombie with Sydney and Arthur Kelly. Thomas Adams wrote a separate assessment of the entries. The winning scheme was published in 1922 as Dublin of the Future.

Abercrombie's Irish Act, and a false dawn

What matters for the legislative story is that Abercrombie and his partners already saw the need for Irish statute, and that they did not want a carbon copy of the 1909 Act. In the published report they sketch a Housing and Town Planning Act for the whole country, built around a central Town Planning Commission and local boards preparing schemes for Parliament - "more a Commission on Town Planning" than the English model, because "the relative conditions are not the same." "Indeed if it is the first act of legislation which proceeds from her newly-formed Parliament," they wrote, "it will be a fitting opening to an honourable career." Bannon's reading of that call, and of the surrounding debate, places it at the heart of the pre-independence agenda (Bannon, pp. 239–240). Adams, for his part, pressed the case for a Greater Dublin Planning Commission (Bannon, pp. 239–240). The Institute's foreword to Dublin of the Future is touching in its hopes: with the recent change in national circumstances a new epoch had begun, and this was "a most opportune time to arouse the interest of the Citizens". The adjudicators, Geddes, Charles McCarthy and John Nolen, had taken care not to endorse every proposal. The authors themselves treated the plan as a starting point and a quarry of ideas rather than a finished ordinance.

It was not the first Act of the new State. Bannon's verdict on the whole pre-1916 "whirlwind of planning promotion" is that it was a false dawn, and that the results in the new State were "limited and long delayed" (Bannon, pp. 241–242). For more than a decade the Free State managed without a general planning system. The Civics Institute kept at it: civic surveys in the mid-1920s, housing weeks, and that Senate Bill with the R.I.A.I. (Bannon, p. 215). Later Abercrombie, with Manning Robertson and the Kellys, prepared a sketch development plan for Dublin; Neil Blaney, introducing the 1962 Bill in the Dáil, dated that sketch to 1939 and said the Corporation's later planning scheme was based on it. The civic ideal was clear. The legal machinery was not yet there.

The adoptive Act of 1934

The Town and Regional Planning Act 1934, enacted on 29 May 1934, was Ireland's first general planning statute. Its long title promised "the orderly and progressive development of cities, towns, and other areas, whether urban or rural" and the preservation and improvement of amenities. Section 17 made every county borough, borough, urban district and county health district a planning district, with the relevant council as planning authority. The decisive feature was that the Act was adoptive. Under section 26 a planning authority could, by a specially notified resolution passed by more than half its members, decide to make a planning scheme for its district or part of it. Once that resolution was passed, the authority could not lawfully revoke it, and interim control began.

That interim control is the hinge of the whole story. Section 57 allowed the authority, after the resolution and before any scheme came into operation, to grant permissions for the construction, demolition, alteration or extension of structures, to attach conditions, and to prohibit work already under way. If it failed to decide a permission application within two months, the application was deemed granted. Section 59 gave any person aggrieved by a grant, refusal or prohibition a right of appeal to the Minister. Compensation for interim restrictions was, in the main, postponed until a scheme was in force. The Town and Regional Planning (Amendment) Act 1939, enacted on 31 May 1939, tried to ease some of the rigidities: it dealt with road plans, density units, special prohibitions and appeals, and sought to relieve authorities of the obligation to plan their entire area in one go. It did not change the adoptive character of the legislation.

Control without a plan

By the early 1960s the results were plain enough to be recited in the Dáil. On 31 January 1963 the Minister's Department told the House that 4,037 valid appeals had been made under section 59 of the 1934 Act: 790 allowed, 435 allowed subject to conditions, 1,425 disallowed and 1,030 withdrawn. A long list of authorities had passed resolutions to make schemes. Exactly one, Dublin Corporation, had ever submitted a scheme for approval. And because no planning scheme had been brought into operation anywhere, no application under the enforcement provisions that depended on an operative scheme could even be made. Irish people were already living under interim planning control, seeking permission and appealing refusals, without a finished plan to tell them what the rules were meant to secure.

When Neil Blaney moved the Second Stage of the Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, 1962, in the Dáil on 22 November 1962, and again in the Seanad on 31 July 1963, he made no effort to defend that record. The 1934 and 1939 Acts, he said, were adoptive; their procedures were "so lengthy and cumbersome that local authorities were deterred from producing comprehensive planning schemes"; only Dublin had prepared a scheme, and even that had not come into force because of defects that "stemmed from inherent weaknesses in the enabling legislation". "Probably the greatest defect of the Acts," he told the Seanad, "was that they failed to stimulate a positive approach to planning." Compensation was tangled up with the coming into force of a scheme; betterment had proved almost impossible to collect (he cited the English experience of only three recorded instances under similar provisions); and the powers were "largely regulatory" when what cities now needed was the ability to assemble land and renew obsolete centres. He was also frank that interim control, intended as a short bridge to a scheme, had become the permanent weather of the system.

The 1963 Act: obligation, definition, permission

The Local Government (Planning and Development) Act 1963, signed on 7 August 1963, repealed the 1934 and 1939 Acts and replaced them with legislation whose long title still sets the tone of Irish planning: provision "in the interests of the common good" for the proper planning and development of cities, towns and other areas. S.I. No. 211/1964 appointed 1 October 1964 as the appointed day. From that date, subject to limited exceptions for building-regulation sections, the new system applied.

Three features made it controlling in a way the 1934 Act never was.

First, the development plan became an obligation. Section 19 required every planning authority, within three years of the appointed day (or such longer period as the Minister might allow), to make a plan indicating development objectives for their area. The plan was to be a written statement and a plan. For cities and towns the minimum objectives included zoning of land for particular purposes, road safety and parking, renewal of obsolete areas, and the preservation and improvement of amenities. For other areas the minima were renewal, amenity, and water and sewerage. Making the plan was a reserved function of the elected members. The Minister's approval of each plan was deliberately dropped; Blaney wanted the Department free to advise rather than to confirm.

Second, "development" was defined widely. Section 3 made it the carrying out of any works on, in or under land, or the making of any material change in the use of any structures or other land. Use of land for advertisements, caravanning, camping, storage of caravans or the deposit of waste was deemed a material change. So was the use as two or more dwellings of a structure previously used as a single dwelling. The 1934 interim regime had controlled structures; the 1963 Act reached use as well. Blaney told the Dáil that the omission of use control in the interim period had been an anomaly born of the hope that schemes would arrive quickly. They had not, and "much harm" had been done.

Third, permission became the general rule. Section 24 is the clause every planner still carries in their head: subject to the Act, permission is required for any development of land that is neither exempted development nor commenced before the appointed day, and for the retention of structures that were unauthorised on that day. A person shall not carry out such development save under and in accordance with a permission. Contravention was a summary offence. Section 26 then set the criteria for deciding applications: the planning authority was restricted to considering the proper planning and development of its area, including amenities, regard being had to the development plan and to any special amenity area order. Reasons had to be stated for refusals and conditions. Any person could appeal to the Minister. Outline permission, public notice of applications, and a public register of decisions were contemplated in the permission regulations. Enforcement notices, tree preservation and conservation orders, special amenity area orders, and positive powers to acquire and redevelop land for urban renewal completed a machinery that was no longer waiting for an optional scheme.

Compensation was reworked so that claims followed individual refusals or conditions rather than the coming into force of a rigid scheme, and betterment charges of the old kind were effectively abandoned. "Property carries obligations as well as rights," Blaney told the Seanad, pointing to the Constitution's delimitation of private property by law. The phrase has been quoted ever since, sometimes as a threat and sometimes as a defence. In context it was the Minister's answer to why a State that had spent a generation giving farmers freehold title through the land acts was now asserting a general veto over the use of land.

Why it felt, and was, so controlling

The jump from 1934 to 1963 is easy to misread as a simple modernisation. It was more than that. The old Act invited councils to enter planning; the new Act required them to. The old Act controlled buildings in the interim and postponed most of the hard reckoning until a scheme arrived that almost never did; the new Act made permission the ordinary condition of development from day one, for works and for material changes of use, across the State. Appeals stayed with the Minister, so the centre of the system remained political for another thirteen years until An Bord Pleanála was created. Positive powers of land assembly for urban renewal, which Blaney had studied in North America, sat beside amenity controls designed for a growing tourist economy. The model owed much to British post-war planning legislation, even though Irish land politics were not the same - and even though Abercrombie, half a century earlier, had already warned against copying the 1909 Act.

Looked at across the longer arc, the 1963 Act is also the delayed answer to the false dawn Bannon describes. Between 1911 and 1916 Dublin had exhibitions, an association, an inquiry, a civic week, a competition and a published plan calling for an Irish Act with a central commission. What it did not get was the Act. What it got, after another generation of adoptive half-measures, was a system that did not wait to be invited in. Senator James Dooge, welcoming the Bill in the Seanad, put his finger on the problem the statute could not solve. The 1934 Act had failed not only procedurally but "in regard to public opinion": "There was a lack of involvement and a lack of participation on the part of the public." His remedy remains the best short summary of what the 1963 Act could create and what it could not: "There must be found a way in which there will be a public sanction for planning." The Oireachtas could, and did, make development without permission an offence. It could not legislate the consent underneath. That is why the system that began on 1 October 1964 still feels, to applicants and objectors alike, like a controlling system: because that is exactly what its authors set out to build, after fifty years in which a civic campaign and then a gentler, adoptive Act had planned and controlled without ever quite closing the circle from idea to binding law.

Further reading

M.J. Bannon (ed.), The Emergence of Irish Planning, 1880–1920 (Turoe Press, Dublin, 1985), especially Michael J. Bannon, "The Genesis of Modern Irish Planning," pp. 189–262: NLI catalogue (https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000119269)

Town and Regional Planning Act, 1934 (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1934/act/22/enacted/en/html) (No. 22 of 1934)

Town and Regional Planning (Amendment) Act, 1939 (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1939/act/11/enacted/en/html) (No. 11 of 1939)

Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963 (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1963/act/28/enacted/en/html) (No. 28 of 1963)

Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, (Appointed Day) Order, 1964 (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1964/si/211/made/en/html) (S.I. No. 211/1964)

Housing, Town Planning, &c. Act, 1909 (https://www.irishstatutebook.ie/eli/1909/act/44/enacted/en/print.html) (note s.76: "This Act shall not extend to Ireland.")

Dáil Éireann, Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, 1962 - Second Stage (https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1962-11-22/113/), 22 November 1962 (Neil Blaney)

Seanad Éireann, Local Government (Planning and Development) Bill, 1962 - Second Stage (https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1963-07-31/6/), 31 July 1963 (Blaney; James Dooge)

Dáil Éireann, Oral Answers - Town Planning (https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/1963-01-31/24/), 31 January 1963 (appeals and planning resolutions under the 1934 Act)

Dublin of the Future (https://centuryireland.rte.ie/centuryireland/images/uploads/further-reading/Ed92-DublinOfTheFuture1.pdf), Patrick Abercrombie, Sydney Kelly and Arthur Kelly (Civics Institute of Ireland, 1922)

Wide Streets Commission (https://iar.ie/archive/wide-streets-commission/) archive description, Dublin City Archives

Planning: The Irish Experience 1920–1988, edited by Michael J. Bannon (Wolfhound Press, 1989), including Kevin Nowlan, "The Evolution of Irish Planning, 1934–1964": NLI catalogue (https://catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000087776)

Irish Planning Law Roundup, 11 November 2026

This is an editorial from BPS Planning, issued for discussion only. It is not legal advice.

A fuller week than the last. The Supreme Court has given a significant judgment on how far an environmental assessment must follow the by-products of a project off site, and the High Court has dealt with three procedural questions that matter more to day-to-day practice than they might first appear: when time runs against a statutory consultee, whether an applicant can test a decision-maker's evidence by cross-examination, and what happens to an enforcement challenge left dormant for four years. Two of the High Court judgments concern site investigation surveys for the Codling offshore wind farm off the Wicklow coast.

Supreme Court: a poultry licence did not have to assess where the manure might end up

Sweetman v The Environmental Protection Agency, Ireland and the Attorney General [2026] IESC 48 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44759) (Michael Noel O'Connor, notice party). Supreme Court (O'Donnell CJ, O'Malley, Woulfe, Hogan and Donnelly JJ), judgment of Woulfe J delivered on 5 November 2026, with which the other members of the court concurred, and published on 10 November 2026.

The case concerned an industrial emissions licence granted by the Environmental Protection Agency for a broiler unit in County Limerick rearing 74,000 birds, above the 40,000-place licensing threshold. The poultry litter and wash water are rich in nitrates and phosphates. The application said that all of the litter would go to a mushroom compost producer in Gorey, County Wexford, and that wash water would be spread on the applicant's own adjoining land, although a report for 2016 showed that roughly two thirds of the litter that year had gone to farmers for landspreading. The Agency's inspector noted that litter "may also be sent for landspreading", but treated the licence as confined to the installation, with spreading regulated under the Nitrates Regulations. Mr Sweetman argued that landspreading was part of the project, and that the Agency should have assessed it for appropriate assessment, under the Water Framework Directive and as an emission from the activity. The High Court (Bradley J) and the Court of Appeal had both rejected that case.

The Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. It held that the Agency's jurisdiction under the Environmental Protection Agency Act 1992 relates to a specified activity in a particular installation, and that the licence, read as a whole, acknowledged that spreading might happen without authorising or regulating it. On the emissions point, the court did not decide whether litter and wash water were "emissions from the activity", because the inspector had in substance assessed the effects of possible spreading in her environmental impact assessment, which was not challenged. On appropriate assessment, Woulfe J accepted that Article 6(3) of the Habitats Directive has no geographical limit, but drew on the court's earlier cheese factory judgment in An Taisce v An Bord Pleanála and on the UK Supreme Court's Finch judgment. Because the application put all of the litter to composting, any landspreading remained "contingent and speculative"; and because the receiving lands could not be identified until a buyer appeared, he was "satisfied on the facts of this case that it is not an effect which is capable of meaningful assessment." The Water Framework Directive argument failed for the same reason. The court considered, and declined, a reference to the Court of Justice, noting that Advocate General Kokott's Opinion in the pending An Taisce references on the Nitrates Action Programme (C-531/24 and C-895/24) arose in a different context.

What it means for your assessment

The judgment confirms that the scope of the project is set by what the application actually proposes, and that an assessor must look at indirect effects but need not try to assess effects that the evidence does not show are likely or that cannot be meaningfully measured. That cuts both ways for practitioners. For applicants, the application documents carry real weight: here the statement that all litter would go to composting was decisive, so descriptions of where by-products, spoil, digestate or slurry will go should be accurate and should match how the operation actually runs, since an assessment built on an inaccurate description is open to attack on other grounds. For planning authorities and inspectors, the inspector's approach in this case is a useful model: she named the possibility of off-site spreading, gave a high-level view of its effects and the controls that apply to it, and said plainly that the licence did not extend to the receiving lands. Where receiving sites are known, or the spreading is an integral part of what is proposed, the position may be quite different, and the pending Court of Justice ruling on the Nitrates Action Programme may yet shape how farm-level spreading is assessed. The judgment is about likelihood and assessability on particular facts, not a general licence to leave off-site effects out of a screening report.

Ballycar wind farm: a statutory consultee's conduct can be challenged within the time for challenging the final decision

Ballycar Green Energy Ltd v An Coimisiún Pleanála and The Irish Air Navigation Service trading as AirNav Ireland [2026] IEHC 726 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44743) (Shannon Airport Authority DAC, notice party). High Court (Nolan J), judgment delivered 3 November 2026 (record H.JR.2026.0000958).

The Commission refused permission on 7 May 2026 for a 12-turbine wind farm of around 50 to 54 megawatts at Ballycar in south-east Clare, near Meelick and north-west of Limerick city. The developer says the refusal rested on AirNav's objection that the scheme posed an aviation safety risk to Shannon Airport, and that it could not offer site-specific mitigation because AirNav would not engage with it or share underlying radar data. Alongside its challenge to the Commission's decision, it sought a declaration that AirNav had failed to act consistently with section 15 of the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015 and had breached its right to fair procedures. AirNav, a prescribed body rather than a decision-maker, argued that the claim against it was governed by Order 84 and was out of time, since its last submission was made on 11 February 2026, more than three months before proceedings issued.

Nolan J granted leave against AirNav. Requiring an applicant to sue each participant in a live planning process before the decision issued would, he said, produce multiple sets of proceedings; he wrote: "I accept the submission that it would create havoc in the planning list." Relying on Spencer Place, North East Pylon Pressure Campaign and the Ballyboden Uisce Éireann confirmation-letter case, he was "satisfied that the Applicant was entitled to wait until the final decision of the Commission before instituting proceedings." He rejected, for now, AirNav's complaint that the pleadings were deficient, while leaving it free to raise the point at the hearing. This is a leave decision only: the judge said expressly that he had no idea whether the complaint about AirNav's engagement was legitimate.

What it means for your assessment

Statutory consultees and prescribed bodies, including AirNav, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, Uisce Éireann and the Department's nature conservation officials, should assume that how they engage with an application may be examined in court alongside the final decision, and should keep a clear record of what was asked of them and what they provided. For applicants, the practical lesson is to put requests for data or meetings in writing and to bring any refusal to engage to the decision-maker's attention during the process, so that the record shows the issue was raised. For inspectors, where a refusal is likely to turn on a single consultee's objection, it is worth recording whether the applicant had a fair chance to respond to it and whether further information was considered. Whether section 15 of the Climate Act imposes any enforceable duty on a consultee in these circumstances remains to be decided at the full hearing.

Codling wind farm surveys: two refusals of cross-examination, and what they say about the record

Ryan and Ors v Maritime Area Regulatory Authority [2026] IEHC 731 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44752) and Blue Ireland Coalition CLG v Maritime Area Regulatory Authority and Ors [2026] IEHC 732 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44753) (Codling Wind Park Limited, notice party in both). High Court (Conlon J), judgments delivered 4 November 2026 and published on 6 November 2026.

Both cases challenge maritime usage licence MUL230034, granted by the Maritime Area Regulatory Authority on 23 February 2026, which allows geophysical and geotechnical surveys over about 477 square kilometres to inform the design of the Codling wind farm on the Codling bank, between 13 and 22 kilometres off the coast between Wicklow Town and Greystones. In Ryan, a group of fishermen argue that the authority never itself decided that environmental impact assessment screening was unnecessary under section 117(5)(a) of the Maritime Area Planning Act 2021, and that the only consideration was by a senior marine advisor without authority to decide. They sought to cross-examine the director who signed the licence. Conlon J refused: the director swore that he made the decision having considered the advisor's report, the licence recitals recorded that the authority had decided screening was not necessary, and the applicants had offered only a bare denial. He held that "the recitals in substance form part of the decision, or are incorporated into the decision."

In Blue Ireland, the applicant challenges the licence on Habitats Directive grounds concerning harbour porpoise, an Annex IV species, and the Rockabill to Dalkey Island SAC. The Natura impact statement calculated that, applying a 5 kilometre effective deterrence range, 31.1 per cent of the SAC could potentially be affected; the developer's ecologist describes that as a precautionary estimate rather than an area affected at any one time. After leave was granted, an ecological expert's report criticising the Annex IV assessment and the Natura impact statement was filed, the developer's expert replied, and the applicant sought a wide-ranging cross-examination. Conlon J accepted that expert evidence may be needed to show a gap in a Habitats Directive assessment, but observed that "reliance by an applicant on evidence which was not before the decision maker should be the exception rather than the rule." He refused the motion because the applicant had not tied the cross-examination to specific pleaded grounds, the issues were fallback arguments that might never arise, and what was sought was roving, though the trial judge may revisit the question. Neither judgment decides whether the licence is valid.

What it means for your assessment

Ryan is a reminder that the paper trail of who decided what matters. Where an officer's or advisor's report recommends a screening conclusion and a more senior person decides, the decision document should say that the decision-maker considered the report and adopted the conclusion, and should record the screening determination itself; here the recitals and the director's affidavit carried the day. Planning authorities and the Commission, which work the same way through planners' and inspectors' reports, should check that their decision templates do this clearly. Blue Ireland underlines that points about disturbance, mitigation and in-combination effects are best made, with evidence, to the decision-maker during the process; a court reviewing legality will not readily weigh new expert material against the record. For those preparing Annex IV and Natura assessments, the disputes aired here (the legal meaning of disturbance, the use of effective deterrence ranges, residual effects after mitigation, and how a separation condition between survey vessels avoids cumulative effects) are a useful checklist of what a report should address explicitly.

Kilfenora wastewater: dormant enforcement challenge refused leave

Duffy v Clare County Council [2026] IEHC 725 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44744) (Irish Water Limited, notice party). High Court (Nolan J), judgment delivered 3 November 2026 (record 2022 493 JR).

Mr Duffy, a Kilfenora resident who has brought several earlier challenges about wastewater in the area, sought leave for judicial review, including mandamus and declarations, over the council's handling of his December 2021 complaints of unauthorised development at the Kilfenora wastewater treatment plant, permitted on appeal in March 2020. He also sought injunctions against a temporary treatment plant and a discharge to groundwater through a swallow hole. The proceedings issued in June 2022 but had not been pursued by him since July 2022. Nolan J refused leave. He found no substantial grounds, as the allegations of bias, failure to investigate under sections 152 and 153 of the 2000 Act and breach of the Groundwater Regulations were "advanced in broad and conclusory terms" without particulars. He also held that it would be an abuse of process to proceed when the same issues could have been pursued in an earlier case, Duffy One, which Mr Duffy had discontinued against the council, and were before the Circuit Court in section 160 proceedings; and that the delay was a further reason to refuse. He wrote that "proceedings once issued, must be pursued with urgency", and noted that the Aarhus costs protection is not absolute, pointing to the court's power under section 50B(3) to award costs where proceedings are frivolous or vexatious or a party has acted unreasonably.

What it means for your assessment

For enforcement officers, the case is a reminder that a section 5 declaration, here confirming that works for the percolation area were development within the terms of the existing permission, can be an important part of the record when complaints are later litigated, and that a written account of how each complaint was investigated is the best answer to a claim of inaction. For residents and community groups, the judgment is a caution rather than a criticism of concern for water quality: a complaint has the best chance in one well-chosen forum, pursued promptly and pleaded with specific facts linked to specific legal errors. The same pleading standard applies to litigants in person as to represented parties.

Further reading

Sweetman v The Environmental Protection Agency [2026] IESC 48 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44759), Courts Service judgment page, with the court's own judgment summary

Ballycar Green Energy Ltd v An Coimisiún Pleanála [2026] IEHC 726 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44743)

Ryan v Maritime Area Regulatory Authority [2026] IEHC 731 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44752) and Blue Ireland Coalition CLG v Maritime Area Regulatory Authority [2026] IEHC 732 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44753)

Duffy v Clare County Council [2026] IEHC 725 (https://judgments.courts.ie/judgments/44744)

Planner’s Take, 13 November 2026

Zoning more land than the core strategy allows will not build the homes Meath needs

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

There is an understandable frustration in council chambers this autumn. Across the country, elected members are varying their county development plans to zone more land for housing, and many of them feel that the national framework they are asked to follow is the very thing holding them back. That frustration came into the open at last week's meeting of Meath County Council, where councillors urged officials to put forward more land than the core strategy permits, on the basis that no Minister would stand in their way.

The argument has a simple logic. Meath has been given a target of 2,942 homes a year to 2030. Councillors pointed out that the county is well short of that rate, and that landowners and builders have made a large number of rezoning submissions. If the land is there, the reasoning goes, zone it, and let the national bodies say what should come out. One councillor put it bluntly: there is no point telling a homeless family that more houses cannot be built because of a core strategy.

That point deserves a fair hearing. The core strategy was designed in an era when the main concern was too much zoned land in the wrong places, the legacy of the years before 2008 when estates were permitted far from services and many were left unfinished. Housing need today is acute, and the national targets have risen. It is reasonable for councillors to ask whether the figures in their plans still match what the Government expects of them, and to press for a review where they do not.

But the proposal to simply zone beyond the core strategy misreads both the law and the problem. The core strategy is not a guideline that councils may set aside when it is inconvenient. It is a statutory part of the development plan, and the plan must be consistent with the National Planning Framework and the regional strategy. Variations are examined by the Office of the Planning Regulator, which can recommend that the Minister direct a council to remove provisions that are not consistent with national and regional policy. A variation built on the hope that nobody will object is a variation that risks months of delay, and it is housing that would bear the cost.

More importantly, zoning was never the binding constraint in most of our growing towns. Land zoned for housing produces homes only when it is serviced, viable and in the hands of someone willing to build. Water and wastewater capacity, road access, schools and public transport decide whether a field becomes an estate. Zoning a large tract on the edge of Dunboyne, as one councillor suggested, does nothing if the pipes cannot take the load, and it may draw investment away from serviced sites closer to the centre. The same meeting heard that Meath County Council is itself liable for over half a million euro in Residential Zoned Land Tax this year on 32 parcels of its own land. That figure says more about the gap between zoning and building than any core strategy table.

Mayo offers a quieter lesson from the same week. Councillors there tried to add a serviced site at the Quay in Westport to their variation by amending the minutes, after it was left out by oversight. The Chief Executive told them that doing so would legally undermine the entire variation, and that the proper route is a material alteration after public display. Nobody disputed that five houses on a serviced site are worth having. The point was that a plan-making process that skips its own procedures invites challenge, and a successful challenge can unpick far more than a single site.

There is a better path, and it is available now. Councils that believe their housing figures are too low should make that case on the evidence, using the Minister's revised targets, and ask the Regulator and the Department to engage early rather than late. Where land is zoned but stalled, the priority should be the infrastructure and activation measures that make it buildable, together with honest scrutiny of why sites stay idle. Councillors are right to want more homes. They will get them faster through a plan that stands up legally and puts new zoning where services can follow, than through a plan that tests how far the rules can be stretched.

Planner’s Take, 12 November 2026

Smaller apartments are filling the Digital Hub, and the courts have yet to rule on the standards

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

Within a week of the Government issuing its Design Standards for Apartments as a national planning statement, the first large public scheme to be reshaped by them has appeared. The Land Development Agency's revised plans for the Digital Hub lands off Thomas Street in Dublin 8 now show 716 apartments, up from the 550 proposed in 2022. One extra storey accounts for part of the increase. Most of it comes from smaller homes.

On its face this is the new policy doing exactly what it was designed to do. The standards allow the smallest apartment, a studio, to fall from 37 to 32 square metres, relax the requirements on dual aspect, ceiling heights, storage and private open space, and stop planning authorities from requiring set proportions of larger units. On a constrained, publicly owned inner-city site well served by public transport and close to jobs and colleges, more homes from the same land is a reasonable ambition. The LDA points out that more than a quarter of the apartments will still exceed the minimum sizes, and the scheme brings 14 buildings on Thomas Street back into use, along with industrial heritage such as Vat House 7 and the Watling Warehouse. That is real regeneration on a street that has waited a long time for it.

But the timing deserves attention. The same standards were issued last year as ministerial guidelines, and a challenge to them led the Irish courts to refer questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union. That ruling is still awaited. The Minister chose to put the standards on the footing of a national planning statement under the new planning legislation rather than wait for it. Whatever the merits of the choice, the practical result is that schemes are now being designed, and soon decided, on standards whose legal basis has not been fully tested.

For applicants this matters a great deal. A large application takes months of design, environmental work and consultation, and a permission takes a year or more to lead to a start on site. The Digital Hub scheme is not due to begin construction until 2028. If the European ruling unsettles the standards, the exposure falls on every permission that depends on them, and on the planning authorities and the Commission that applied them. Developers will price that risk, and lenders will ask about it. It would be an unhappy outcome if a measure meant to speed up delivery instead invited a new round of judicial review.

There is also the question of what is being built. The case for smaller units rests on the large number of one and two-person households and on viability, and both arguments have force. Yet a city that builds mainly studios and one-bedroom homes in its core risks repeating an old mistake: inner-city neighbourhoods that people pass through rather than settle in. Dublin 8 is a long-established community of families. The scheme includes only a small number of three-bedroom homes, and those are in the refurbished buildings along Thomas Street. The just-approved second phase at St Teresa's Gardens nearby, with its own-door duplexes, shows that a mix of homes remains achievable on public land.

The counter-argument is serious and should be stated fairly. Households are waiting now. Construction costs are high, and every square metre counts against viability. Generous standards that add cost do not help someone renting a box room in a shared house. Smaller, well-designed homes in the right locations are better than homes that are never built, and the evidence from the pipeline is that too many permissions are not proceeding.

My view is that both things can be true. Compact apartments have a place in a well-served inner city, and the LDA's scheme has much to recommend it. However, the State's own housing delivery body should be setting the benchmark for quality, not simply testing the new minimums. The Commission, when it receives this application, should look closely at the mix of homes, the quality of daylight in single-aspect units, and the communal space that compensates for smaller private rooms. And the Government would do well to say plainly what it will do if the European ruling goes against it. Certainty is the one thing every applicant, council and community needs, and it is the one thing the current approach has not yet provided.

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 13 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering the passage of the Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill through the Dáil, Meath councillors' call to zone more land than the core strategy allows, a Westport site left out of Mayo's development plan variation, 38 homes approved in Portarlington, a revised 35-home scheme in Buncrana, the conversion of the Lough Allen Hotel to apartments, and an unused Tallaght crèche turned into two apartments.

Short-term letting Bill passes the Dáil

The Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill has passed the Dáil by 83 votes to 71 and now goes to the Seanad. It sets up a national register of short-term lets of up to 21 nights, administered by Fáilte Ireland, while the accompanying national planning statement restricts new short-term lets in towns of more than 20,000 people. Kerry TD Michael Healy-Rae argued that long-established operators would still have to seek retention permission, while the Taoiseach said there is a presumption in favour of permission for those operating for more than seven years and a simplified application process, and Minister for Tourism Peter Burke described it as a straightforward process.

Source: The Irish Times (12 November 2026) (https://www.irishtimes.com/politics/oireachtas/2026/11/12/short-term-lets-bill-passes-dail-as-taoiseach-criticises-healy-rae-scaremongering/)

Meath councillors urge more rezoning despite core strategy limits

Meath councillors have urged planning officials to put forward more land for residential rezoning than the core strategy and National Planning Framework allow, as the council varies its county development plan. Councillors said Meath will struggle to meet its ministerial target of 2,942 homes a year to 2030, and Chief Executive Kieran Kehoe asked them to identify where they want more zoned land. The meeting also heard that the council faces a Residential Zoned Land Tax liability of €546,048 for 2026 on 32 of its own land parcels.

Source: Meath Chronicle (12 November 2026) (https://www.meathchronicle.ie/2026/11/12/the-minister-is-looking-for-300000-houses-by-2030-but-we-havent-a-hope-of-reaching-that-with-the-figures-we-have/)

Westport site to stay out of Mayo plan variation for now

Mayo County Council's Chief Executive, Kevin Kelly, has told councillors that adding land at the Quay in Westport to the county development plan variation by amending the minutes would legally undermine the whole variation. Councillors said the serviced site, where a developer wants to build five houses, had been left out by oversight and remains zoned agricultural. Mr Kelly said the only route is a material alteration after the public display period, with the variation due back before councillors next month.

Source: The Mayo News (11 November 2026) (https://www.mayonews.ie/news/westport-site-to-remain-omitted-following-mayo-council-chiefs-warning-9345469)

38 homes approved at Cooltederry, Portarlington

Laois County Council has granted conditional permission to Garryduff Properties for 38 homes on a 1.128-hectare greenfield site at Cooltederry, Portarlington, accessed through the Lansdowne and Castlelea estates. The site has been the subject of several earlier applications, and this one drew 17 objections citing traffic, loss of green space, density and the unfinished state of the existing estate. Conditions include biodiversity enhancement in the green areas and EV charging for 10 per cent of parking spaces.

Source: Laois Live (12 November 2026) (https://www.ireland-live.ie/midlands/laois-live/laois-housing-estate-approved-after-years-of-planning-battles-9346589)

Revised 35-home scheme approved at Luddan, Buncrana

Donegal County Council has granted George Doherty Construction permission for revised house designs and a modified layout at a 35-home development at Luddan, Buncrana, first approved in 2020, including the replacement of seven partly built houses. The repositioning increases separation distances from existing homes. The 28 conditions include a DMURS-compliant footpath before development starts and Stage 2 and Stage 3 road safety audits.

Source: Donegal Live (12 November 2026) (https://www.donegallive.ie/news/35-buncrana-houses-get-planning-approval-with-seven-homes-to-be-rebuilt-9348314)

Lough Allen Hotel to be converted to 24 apartments

Leitrim County Council has granted permission to convert the 24 hotel apartments at the Lough Allen Hotel in Drumshanbo into residential apartments meeting current standards, with new balconies, ground-floor patios, a lift, bicycle parking and bin storage. The seven conditions include a landscaping scheme, an Uisce Éireann connection agreement and the appointment of a management company before occupation.

Source: Leitrim Observer (12 November 2026) (https://www.leitrimobserver.ie/news/permission-granted-for-leitrim-hotel-to-convert-to-residential-apartments-9346218)

Unused Tallaght crèche to become two apartments

South Dublin County Council has granted a change of use to turn a crèche at Westend Gate, Tallaght, into two two-bedroom apartments of 93 and 104 square metres. The applicant said the 2004 facility had never been occupied by a childcare provider because of its lack of drop-off space and parking, its busy roadside location and existing supply in the area. No extra parking is proposed, given the Luas stop about 320 metres away.

Source: The Echo (12 November 2026) (https://www.echo.ie/two-apartments-approved-for-former-tallaght-creche/)

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 12 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering the Land Development Agency's revised plans for 716 apartments at the Digital Hub in Dublin 8, an EU push to permit wind and solar farms within six months, 123 homes and a multi-sport pitch approved at St Teresa's Gardens, the Commission's refusal of the Graffy wind farm near Glenties, and a withdrawn application for 40 apartments in Waterford city.

LDA plans 716 apartments for Digital Hub lands in Dublin 8

The Land Development Agency has published revised plans for its Pear Tree Crossing scheme at the Digital Hub off Thomas Street, increasing the number of apartments from 550 to 716 in blocks of up to 13 storeys. The increase comes partly from one extra storey but mostly from smaller apartments permitted under the Government's new Design Standards for Apartments, issued last week as a national planning statement; more than a quarter of the units will still exceed the minimum sizes and just over 40 per cent will be dual aspect. The scheme would reinstate 14 buildings on Thomas Street and reuse industrial heritage buildings including Vat House 7 and Watling Warehouse, with an application to An Coimisiún Pleanála due by the end of the year and construction expected to start in 2028.

Source: The Irish Times (12 November 2026) (https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/11/12/more-than-700-homes-planned-for-digital-hub-lands/)

EU Grids Package could see wind and solar farms permitted within six months

European Commissioner for Energy Dan Jorgensen has said that standard wind and solar developments, and the cables and grid infrastructure that serve them, could be permitted within six months under the EU Grids Package, with a maximum of two years for complex projects. He said permits can currently take five to ten years, and that negotiations are hoped to conclude before Christmas, during Ireland's presidency of the EU. Minister for Climate Darragh O'Brien has previously said passing the package is a priority for the presidency.

Source: The Irish Times (12 November 2026) (https://www.irishtimes.com/environment/2026/11/12/planning-for-wind-and-solar-farms-could-be-granted-within-six-months-under-new-plans/)

123 homes and multi-sport pitch approved at former St Teresa's Gardens

Dublin city councillors have approved 123 homes, 103 cost rental and 20 social, together with a multi-sport playing pitch and a new public park, on the former St Teresa's Gardens site in Dublin 8. The second phase of the LDA and Dublin City Council's Donore Project includes a 16-storey apartment block and a three-storey block of own-door ground-floor and duplex apartments. Construction is due to start next year, with the pitch to be finished by the end of 2027 and the homes by the end of 2028.

Source: The Irish Times (11 November 2026) (https://www.irishtimes.com/ireland/2026/11/11/new-multi-sport-playing-pitch-and-123-homes-granted-permission-in-dublin-8/)

Commission refuses Graffy wind farm near Glenties over eagle risk

An Coimisiún Pleanála has refused permission for an eight-turbine wind farm at Graffy, near Glenties, Co Donegal, citing a significant collision risk for white-tailed eagles and habitat loss and displacement for golden eagles, both Annex I species. The Commission also found the turbines would be highly obtrusive in an area designated as Especially High Scenic Amenity, and stated that the refusal was consistent with its obligations under the Climate Action and Low Carbon Development Act 2015. The appeal by Cuilfeach Teoranta had been reactivated in 2025 after a successful High Court challenge to the Commission's 2023 decision.

Source: Donegal Live (11 November 2026) (https://www.donegallive.ie/news/an-coimisiun-pleanala-refuses-glenties-wind-farm-citing-eagle-safety-9345265)

Application for 40 apartments behind Tycor estate withdrawn

An application for 40 apartments in five blocks at the rear of The Willows estate in Tycor, Waterford city, has been withdrawn following opposition from local residents. The proposal comprised 24 one-bedroom, five two-bedroom and 11 three-bedroom apartments with 30 parking spaces, and residents had raised concerns about traffic safety, density, residential amenity and missing technical assessments.

Source: The Munster Express (11 November 2026) (https://www.munster-express.ie/developer-withdraws-apartment-block-application/)

Planner’s Take, 11 November 2026

A permission that is never built is not a home: why the planning pipeline needs watching

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

For most of the past decade, the argument about housing in Ireland has been an argument about the planning system. The charges are familiar: too slow, too uncertain, too exposed to legal challenge. Deloitte's latest Crane Survey, reported this morning, offers a useful corrective. It does not say the planning system is the only problem. It says something more uncomfortable: that even the permissions we already have are not reliably turning into homes.

The headline figures are stark. Deloitte expects about 40,000 homes to be completed this year, a 10 per cent rise on 2025 and the highest level since 2008. That is real progress and deserves to be said plainly. But the Government's target is 300,000 homes by the end of 2030, which would leave around 260,000 to be built in four years. On Deloitte's reading, the State is on course to fall short by somewhere between 123,400 and 136,100 homes.

The reasoning behind that estimate matters more than the number. Over the last five years, 182,130 homes have been granted planning permission. Yet Central Bank analysis suggests that between a quarter and almost a third of permissions never commence at all. Apply that lapse rate, and the pipeline shrinks quickly. Add the usual delay between a grant and a first sod being turned, and it becomes clear why the report describes the next 12 to 18 months as critical.

For planners, this should shift the conversation. A grant of permission is often treated, in political debate and in council reports alike, as the finish line. It is not. A permission is an option to build, and options are exercised only when the numbers work: when finance can be raised, when construction costs are matched by achievable prices or rents, when water and wastewater connections are available, and when the developer has the capacity to start. Where any of those conditions fails, the permission sits on a file until it expires.

There is a further caution in the report. Deloitte notes that this year's strong completions owe something to the temporary waiver of development levies introduced in 2024, which requires homes to be completed by 31 December 2026. A deadline of that kind pulls activity forward. When it passes, some of the momentum may pass with it. It would be a mistake to read any dip next year as proof that planning reform has failed.

The counter-arguments deserve a fair hearing. The Government can point to rising completions, and yesterday the Department reported a 57 per cent rise in what it now calls Starter Home Supports, with Cost Rental delivery more than doubling in the first half of the year. Forecasts are not destiny, and the lapse rate drawn from earlier years may not hold in a market with more State involvement through the Land Development Agency, local authorities and approved housing bodies, which do not walk away from permissions in the same way. All of that is true, and the Deloitte figures should be read as a warning rather than a verdict.

But the warning points to practical work. Councils already record commencement notices; that information should be brought together with grant data, regularly and in public, so that everyone can see how many permitted homes are actually under way in each county and why the rest are stalled. Where the obstacle is infrastructure, the answer is targeted investment in water, wastewater and transport, programmed alongside zoning rather than after it. Where the obstacle is viability, the honest response is to say so, and to decide openly whether the State will close the gap through cost rental, affordable purchase or direct delivery.

None of this is an argument for granting less, or for weakening the scrutiny that good decisions require. Ireland needs a steady flow of sound permissions in the right places. It is an argument for measuring the right thing. The number of homes permitted is a measure of the planning system's output; the number of homes started is a measure of whether that output is useful. For as long as a quarter or more of permitted homes are never built, the State is not short of permissions so much as short of the conditions that turn them into front doors.

The next year and a half will show whether the recent rise in completions is a turning point or a peak shaped by a deadline. Planners cannot control interest rates or construction costs, but we can insist on clearer evidence of what happens after the decision is made. That would be a modest reform, and more useful than blaming the system for homes it has already approved.