Planner’s Take, 4 November 2026

Government moves to lock in smaller apartment standards while EU court question is pending

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

Housing Minister James Browne is expected to bring a National Planning Statement on apartment design standards to Cabinet today. If reports are right, its content will closely follow the apartment guidelines published in July 2025, which reduced minimum floor areas, allowed more studios, required fewer windows and balconies and dropped the requirement for indoor communal or cultural facilities. What changes is the legal vehicle. The standards would move from Ministerial guidelines under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 to a statement under section 25 of the Planning and Development Act 2024, whose provisions on such statements were commenced in October 2025.

The timing matters because the 2025 guidelines are still before the courts. Councillors Darragh Moriarty, David Healy, Dan Boyle and Pádraig McEvoy, together with the late Frank McDonald, argued that the guidelines should have been subject to strategic environmental assessment before they were adopted. In December 2025, Mr Justice Richard Humphreys proposed referring questions on the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive to the Court of Justice of the European Union, and the case has since gone to Luxembourg. The questions go to the heart of what counts as a plan or programme: whether design standards that affect the number and internal layout of units, but not the number or location of developments, are within the Directive, and whether it matters that a decision-maker must have regard to a document rather than comply with it.

The Government's answer is to do the assessment anyway. The draft statement was published in June with an SEA environmental report and put out to public consultation, so the new instrument should be on firmer ground than the guidelines it replaces. Whatever the Court of Justice decides, a statement adopted after environmental assessment and consultation is less exposed than guidelines adopted without one. The Minister is entitled to want certainty, and Cairn Homes' submission to the Oireachtas housing committee this week underlines why. Its chief executive argues that the national target of 50,000 to 60,000 homes a year cannot be met unless roughly half of all new homes are apartments, given the density requirements that now attach to most zoned land.

For practitioners, the shift is more than a change of label. Section 28 guidelines can contain specific planning policy requirements that planning authorities and the Commission must apply in their decisions. Under the 2024 Act, development plans and regional strategies must be materially consistent with the national planning policies and measures in a statement and take due account of its guidance. Applicants, council planners and inspectors will need to read the final text carefully to see which standards are framed as binding policy and which as guidance, and how the transition from the old guidelines is handled for applications already in the system.

There are reasonable objections. The first is about quality. Apartments built now will be lived in for generations, and floor area, light and outdoor space are not easily retrofitted. Smaller units may help viability on paper, but Ireland's past experience with poor apartment stock should make anyone cautious about treating standards as the main lever on cost. Construction costs, finance, land values and the lack of buyers at the prices needed are at least as important. The second is legal. Moving to a new instrument does not make the referred questions disappear. Permissions granted in reliance on the 2025 guidelines may still be argued over depending on how the Court of Justice answers, and it would be unwise to assume that question has been settled by today's decision.

A third point is one of process. Nothing prevents the Government adopting a statement while a reference is pending. But it sits awkwardly with the State's own position that the guidelines did not need assessment at all. Carrying out SEA now is, in effect, an acknowledgement that it is the safer course, a lesson worth applying as other statements replace the remaining section 28 guidelines.

On balance, putting apartment standards on a statutory footing with environmental assessment and public consultation is the right direction, and certainty has real value for housing delivery. Standards should still be judged on whether they produce homes people want to live in for decades, not only on whether they make schemes stack up this year. The final text and the environmental report deserve close reading, and the Court of Justice's eventual answer will still matter for how Ireland makes national planning policy.

Irish Town Planner Planning News Roundup, 4 November 2026

Here is today's round-up of town planning news from around Ireland, covering new national apartment standards due at Cabinet, final approval of the short-term letting planning statement, a warning from Cairn on apartment output, 153 apartments granted in Ballincollig, a refusal for 403 homes in Clondalkin, councillors' approval of social homes on the Darndale spine site and an appeal refusal for 19 homes in Kilcock.

Apartment standards set to be made national planning policy

Housing Minister James Browne is expected to bring a National Planning Statement on apartment design standards to Cabinet today, which The Journal understands will replicate the July 2025 apartment guidelines that reduced minimum apartment sizes and relaxed requirements on windows, balconies and indoor communal facilities. The 2025 guidelines are the subject of a High Court challenge by councillors Darragh Moriarty, David Healy, Dan Boyle and Pádraig McEvoy and the late Frank McDonald, in which questions on the Strategic Environmental Assessment Directive have been referred to the Court of Justice of the European Union. The Government says putting the standards in a statement, which has been through its own strategic environmental assessment, will give builders certainty nationwide.

Source: The Journal (4 November 2026)

Government approves short-term letting planning statement

The Government has approved the issuing of the National Planning Statement on Short-Term Letting by Housing Minister James Browne and Minister of State John Cummins, setting a national approach for councils deciding applications for short-term lets. It generally precludes new permissions in towns and cities with populations over 20,000, while elsewhere councils are to be more amenable and providers get an extended period to obtain consent. Once the Short-Term Letting and Tourism Bill 2026 is passed, all providers will have to register with Fáilte Ireland and confirm they are planning compliant.

Source: Department of Housing (3 November 2026)

Cairn warns 60,000 homes a year depends on apartments

In a submission to the Oireachtas housing committee, Cairn Homes forecasts close to 40,000 completions this year, but chief executive Michael Stanley says there is little chance of reaching 50,000 to 60,000 homes a year unless about 25,000 to 30,000 apartments are built annually. He says the National Planning Framework means the State can deliver only about 25,000 to 30,000 own-door houses a year and that 85 per cent of zoned land carries density requirements needing some or all apartments. He called for State support to make apartments viable while private capital remains limited.

Source: The Irish Times (3 November 2026)

153 apartments granted at Old Fort Road, Ballincollig

Cork City Council has granted O'Flynn Construction permission for 153 one- and two-bed apartments in three blocks of three to six storeys, with a childcare facility, at Old Fort Road, Ballincollig, subject to 37 conditions. The site's 2020 permission led to a six-year legal battle that went to the Court of Justice of the European Union, and a fresh application was refused by An Coimisiún Pleanála in May 2025 for materially contravening the unit mix requirements of the 2022 Cork City Development Plan. The scheme was reduced from 157 units after daylight and sunlight concerns.

Source: Irish Examiner (3 November 2026)

South Dublin refuses 403 homes at Clondalkin logistics site

South Dublin County Council has refused Thornmeadow Developments permission for 403 homes, mostly apartments in a nine-storey mixed-use building and three five-storey blocks, at the Securispeed Logistics site in Clondalkin, on seven grounds. Reasons included flood risk, inadequate childcare provision, a substandard single access via Oakfield Road, poor sunlight to some units and open spaces, traffic concerns, a car parking ratio considered too low and the absence of an Environmental Impact Assessment Report. Seventeen submissions were received.

Source: The Echo (3 November 2026)

Councillors approve social homes on Darndale spine site

Dublin City Council members have approved, under the Part 8 process, the council and Respond's plan for social housing on the Spine Site in Darndale, after agreeing an amendment to convert two ground-floor homes to community use, leaving 82 homes alongside an 86 sq m community hub. The original proposal was for 84 homes, including 50 for older people, in buildings of two and three storeys. A further motion to convert 10 apartments to community use was not carried after the housing manager said it would require a complete redraft of the scheme.

Source: Dublin Inquirer (4 November 2026)

Refusal upheld for 19 homes at Church Street, Kilcock

An Coimisiún Pleanála has upheld Kildare County Council's refusal of permission for Mulberry Properties' development of 19 homes on Church Street, Kilcock, according to Construction Information Services. The €4.2 million scheme comprised terraced houses and maisonettes with a new entrance from Church Street and a ramped pedestrian connection to the Royal Canal Greenway.

Source: Leinster Leader (3 November 2026)

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)