Ms Claragh Mulhern:

Not necessarily. The draft Bill states the applicant must have "sufficient interest" or "may be directly or indirectly materially affected by the matters to which the application relates". If an applicant had made submissions in respect of the planning application or the appeal, that would be an obvious demonstration the applicant had sufficient interest. There is lots of case law on what sufficient interest means. You can also demonstrate sufficient interest, even if you have not taken part in the process. That is difficult to define here but, generally speaking, if somebody has engaged in the planning process, that person automatically has sufficient interest.