Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Tuesday, 19 May 2026
Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage
Operations of An Coimisiún Pleanála
2:00 am
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I advise members of the constitutional requirement that they must be physically present within the confines of the Leinster House complex in order to participate in public meetings.
An Coimisiún Pleanála is Ireland's independent statutory body responsible for making decisions on planning appeals and major development projects. It plays a central role in the planning system by reviewing proposals from local authorities, ensuring that development is carried out in a sustainable and balanced way, and considering the economic, environmental and community impacts. Through its quasi-judicial functions the commission helps to promote transparency, consistency and public trust in national planning decisions.
Today, I am pleased we have the opportunity to consider this and other related matters with the following representatives from An Coimisiún Pleanála: Mr. Peter Mullan, chief executive officer, Ms Ciara Kellett, director of planning, and Ms Erika Casey, also director of planning.
Before we begin I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses regarding references witnesses may make to other persons in their evidence. The evidence of witnesses who are physically present or who give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both the Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. Witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that they should not criticise or make charges against any person or entity by name or in any such way as to make him, her or it identifiable, or otherwise engage in speech that might be regarded as damaging to the good name of the person or entity. Therefore, if their statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, they will be directed to discontinue their remarks. It is imperative that they comply with any such direction.
The opening statements have been circulated to members. Is it agreed that they will be published on the committee's web page? Agreed. I invite Mr. Mullan to make his opening remarks on behalf of An Coimisiún Pleanála.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I thank the Chair and the Deputies and Senators present for this opportunity to address the committee. The full statement has been provided to the committee along with assisting documents. I will make a short statement.
I am accompanied by my director of legal affairs, who is sitting behind us, but primarily by two directors of planning. Erika, on my right-hand side, is responsible for normal planning appeals, including housing, substitute consents and referrals. Ciara, who is on my left-hand side, is responsible for strategic infrastructure development and direct applications.
Ireland must provide critical infrastructure and housing needs for our growing population and economy to improve competitiveness and ensure balanced regional development while meeting our climate obligations. An Coimisiún Pleanála and the planning system must evolve in improving the response to this challenge. We are committed to continuous performance and efficiency improvements. I acknowledge the work done by my colleagues - the planning commissioners and the staff in the organisation.
The Planning and Development Act 2024 introduced a new governance structure and a more defined decision-making function for the organisation. This new structure distinguishes in legislation the corporate governance and decision-making functions. The regular day-to-day management and control of the organisation is my responsibility as CEO. The governing board is responsible for the overall governance and strategic direction. The decision-making function is the sole preserve of the planning commissioners, overseen by the chief planning commissioner and a newly appointed deputy planning commissioner.
The commission had grown to 303 staff at the end of April, up from 202 at the end of 2022. The details are in the pack. That is quite a large increase in our staff. A total of 173 work on the planning function side and 117 on the corporate function side.
We are committed to meeting our statutory timelines in all direct appeals on strategic infrastructure and large-scale developments.
We have made significant progress in this regard over the past while. I am happy to answer the members' questions on it. At the end of the year, the total number of cases on hand was 1,307. That was a 17% reduction on a similar caseload at the end of 2024. We noticed this year that there has been an 18% increase in the number of planning appeals and direct applications in quarter 1 compared with the equivalent period last year. At the end of April, there were 1,321 cases. I am happy to talk about compliance rates in that regard as well.
On housing, in 2025, the commission received 78 large-scale residential developments. One hundred per cent of these were decided within the 16-week statutory period. We have received 24 to date this year, and the compliance rate is 95%. Details of the numbers of units involved are set out in the information pack. We are committed to clearing our housing backlog and have been engaging with various stakeholders in discussions on that. An initiative we have introduced over the past while is an online appeals service. This enables planning appeals to be submitted online, with a fee paid for the relevant period. This is a key milestone in our digital transformation strategy. It will improve customer satisfaction. We had a pilot running earlier this year, and it was introduced officially on 20 May. To date, we have received over 100 applications.
A number of significant infrastructure cases have been decided in the past year. We are happy to discuss those with the committee. There have been significant changes with regard to judicial reviews. We noticed a trend towards the end of last year of a significant reduction in judicial reviews. That said, there have been significant numbers, and I am happy to discuss that. We also take stakeholder engagement seriously. That was a recommendation that came from the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR. We have engaged extensively with various stakeholders.
The full opening statement is set out in the information pack. We are happy to answer any questions about this and other matters.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Mullan for his presentation. I will start by acknowledging the significant work that has been done by Mr. Mullan, his team and his predecessor in dealing with many of the challenges with which the commission is faced. I also want to acknowledge the huge amount of work done by the inspectors and other staff of the commission. When we were dealing with the legislation, we had significant engagement with them. It is often forgotten that when an organisation goes through challenges, as the board did, it has a huge impact on staff and morale. It is important that they hear that this committee acknowledges the work they do and the important public service they provide. I wanted to say that at the outset.
I want to give Mr. Mullan the opportunity to set out in more detail some of the information in his concise statement. I am of the view that the commission has turned a significant corner and that there have been significant improvements. I would some of the detail to be put on record.
On the backlog, Mr. Mullan gave outlined the number of cases on hand at the end of the year. Obviously, some of those are still within their statutory time limits and some do not have statutory time limits. Will he give us a sense of what the time limit really looks like, particularly for decisions in cases outside the statutory timeline or those relating to cases that have been on hand for more than a year or two years and the small number that have been on hand for more than three years?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I thank the Deputy for putting on record his appreciation for the work done by colleagues in the organisation and for acknowledging the difficult period we went through. I will first talk in a general way about the backlog. May 2023 was the high point, with 3,600 cases. I took over as CEO shortly thereafter. The Deputy met Oonagh Buckley in his capacity as housing spokesperson. That was the backlog we had. That is the high watermark. That is three years’ work on hand in terms of our caseload. Our caseload is between 1,200 and 1,300. That is the point where we made an application for additional resources for staff and started to recruit. I will happily talk about that. The inspectors and commissioners have worked as an organisation to get those decisions out the door. We are now at a point where our caseload at the end of April is just over 1,300. We are almost at our caseload. As the Deputy acknowledged, there is a mix of decisions. There are some large-scale decisions for which the new timeline under the new Act will be 26, 48 or 65 weeks. These large, strategic cases are in there. The majority of cases on the 16 or 18 week timeline are on the NPA side. Overall, we have a compliance rate in relation to our SOP-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What does SOP stand for?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The overall backlog has reduced dramatically since that high point. As that is shrinking does the commission have visibility on the number of new cases falling into the backlog as opposed to the clearing of the historic backlog?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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You can never have too much data.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I might disagree with the Deputy there, but I take the point. We have a lot of data, so we have a good sense of what is there. Last year, we carried out a trial in respect of new planning appeals for 2025. With the new mandatory timelines coming in, we wanted to see if we would be able to deal with them. In the trial period, we were able to deal with 94% of our normal planning appeals. By its nature, if you are concentrating on your existing caseload, it means there are some historic cases. Ms Casey has some details on the small number of 2024 cases and the slightly higher number in 2025. We have better details on that. I also point out that there is a blend of cases. I should defer to my colleagues.
In terms of numbers, between 70% and 80% of our work is on the normal planning appeals side. The complex cases are on the strategic investment side. We have noticed a significant increase of 18% in cases in the first quarter of 2026 compared with the equivalent period last year.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will focus on one group. There are 16 outstanding strategic housing development cases, and they have been in the system for quite a long period. Without prejudice to the final decision, is there an expectation as to when they will be cleared out?
Ms Erika Casey:
With the SHD cases we had a substantial number of cases on hand. There were a lot of legal complexities in terms of the pending decisions from the Supreme Court on the Crofton case, as well as two other significant cases that would get clarity with regard to SHD procedures. Since we got clarity on Crofton and the remittal process we have processed 60 SHD cases since April last year. Unfortunately, most of those cases were lodged under the old development plans and the Deputy is aware that there are limitations there. There is quite a high refusal rate. Over 82% of those have been refused. We currently have 16 remitted cases that came in between 2024 and this year.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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For clarity, those were cases that were judicially reviewed and remitted back to the commission by the board.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will come to issues of staffing and judicial reviews in the next round.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for coming in and thank them for their opening statement. There has been a 17% increase in quarter 1 of 2026. That is a big increase compared with last year. What do they think is the reason for that massive increase?
Ms Ciara Kellett:
For the committee's information, there has been a 22% increase in the first four months of this year compared to the four months last year of the direct applications. Obviously, Mr. Mullan was talking about them in general. A significant number of those are to do with the renewable energy directive, RED III. We saw a spike in the number of direct applications for wind farms. We have also seen a significant number of solar farms that have been appealed into us. Certainly from the renewables point of view there has been a spike in the last few months.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
To go back to the direct question, there is certainly also an increase on the NPA side. What I have not been able to do, and I want to start discussions with the Department in relation to this, is to see if that reflects more activity in the sector generally, with more applications with the local authorities, and then in turn those are returned or appealed to us. It is a very significant increase. It is going to be challenging. If it continues for the rest of the year it will be challenging.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Coming back to the renewable side of it, is there anything more that could be done out there to prevent these appeals coming in?
Ms Ciara Kellett:
To be clear, the direct applications come directly into An Coimisiún Pleanála. We do have a substantial number of appeals that are decisions made at local authority stage and which are then appealed into us by third or first party depending on the decision. There is an increase in numbers and it is probably reflective of the fact that the applicants themselves are increasing in number. To meet our 2030 targets and so forth the activity in the sector has increased. I am assuming this would generate the significant amount of appeals, particularly in respect of the solar farms, that we have seen in the last sort of two quarters. Then with the renewable energy directive coming in we most definitely have seen a big increase in the number of applications. We have had 16 direct applications on wind farms that have been validated with us. That was in September of last year. Compare that to 12 across the year of 2024 and 2025. In the most recent two months we had eight applications in. Obviously the sector is starting to look to the 2030 targets and the numbers are reflecting that, we believe.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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If there was more community engagement with the developers and the communities out there, do the witnesses think it would help the situation going forward? I raised such community engagement in the Dáil last week. Could it be a way to help the situation?
Ms Ciara Kellett:
For the direct applications we have a pre-application consultation with the applicants. That is our opportunity to discuss with the applicants prior to them lodging the application. Part of that pre-application consultation is that we encourage them to meet the local communities. We ask them what they have done and we try to ensure they engage with the communities as much as possible. Then there is the statutory element. As soon as the application is lodged, the local community has seven to eight weeks - it depends - to make their submissions directly into us. These are a hugely important aspect of the overall case. They are taken into account. Every single page of a submission is read by our inspectors. These can sometimes run to hundreds of submissions and hundreds of pages but it is all part of the caseload. To answer the Deputy's question, we encourage the applicants to engage because we believe that engagement and proper consultation with the locals are definitely a requirement and should be done properly.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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My belief is that if there was more engagement with communities, it would probably help An Coimisiún Pleanála's situation going forward.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I also see in the housing figures that there were 78 large-scale residential development, LRD, appeals, of which 100% were decided within the 16 weeks. I must say that this is fabulous work, in fairness, because we know that in the past there was a long waiting time to get results from An Bord Pleanála, now An Coimisiún Pleanála. This figure of 78 is a large number of appeals. What are the major concerns out there? Why are these appeals coming in to the board?
Ms Erika Casey:
The majority of the appeals that we get for LRDs are from third parties. We do also receive first party appeals where the development has been refused permission by the local authority. The appeals are, however, predominantly from third parties. The concerns vary hugely. These are large residential developments. Typical grounds for appeal would be concerns regarding the density, the height, traffic concerns, sometimes environmental concerns, and concerns about lack of social infrastructure in the area and the ability to cope with a further increase in housing. These are some of the typical issues we see.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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We are well aware of the housing crisis at the moment. Are these appeals delaying houses being developed?
Ms Erika Casey:
Obviously it is extending out the timeframe for a decision. From our perspective they are an absolute organisational priority, which is why we have that 16-week timeline and as the committee can see, we have a very high compliance rate with that at 100% for 2025 and 95% for this year so far. There is no delay in terms of our statutory requirements in meeting that but any appeal will delay the ultimate decision.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Of these 78 appeals in 2025 how many were successful?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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So there were five refused in 2025 out of the 78?
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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And the rest were granted.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Again, it is an awful waste of time and is actually holding up development from going forward. With the housing crisis at the moment it is disappointing to see the number of appeals going in over one year alone.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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We know that.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Our commitment is to get those through the organisation in 16 weeks. There have certainly been delays in that 16 weeks but if at the end of that period there is certainty in relation to the issue and the issue has been resolved, we feel we have done our job well, but I take the Deputy's point.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I compliment An Coimisiún Pleanála in getting it done in the 16 weeks.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I thank the coimisiún for its work. I have a number of questions. Do the witnesses have views on the judicial review and will they explain that fall in the number of judicial reviews? Maybe they can outline the reason for that. On the judicial reviews, 30% of them were taken by the applicant for the development and 57% by third parties. In the context of that there has been a lot of commentary around judicial reviews and how much they hold up housing. When we look at these figures, however, we see a significant amount are by the applicant for the development. Will the witnesses comment on that narrative?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
The Deputy has picked this up. It was not in my opening statement but it is in the longer statement that I provided to the committee. Yes. If I was appearing before the committee this time last year I would have said that we were seeing an exponential rise in the number of judicial reviews and that halfway through the year, we were certainly heading to 200 plus and an increase. Something happened in the second half of the year and I think there are a number of factors there. Our decision-making has certainly got better. We have invested very significantly. Our director of legal is here. He heads a team of 11 people and there are three other lawyers in the unit. We work with our solicitors and barristers. Every legal decision that comes from the High Court and the superior courts generally, whether it is a win or a loss or whether it is a concession, there is an education piece every single month to all the relevant members of staff. That includes the inspectorate, the commissioners and the administrative staff at the relevant level, to learn from that. We have done a lot of learning and I think this has started to show. We won a number of very significant High Court cases as that year went on. The trend started to change towards us winning more and our statistics are set out in the statement. We are winning more cases and more cases are being withdrawn. Generally, what happened in the second part of 2025 and in the first part of this year has been an exponential drop. I cannot explain it per se, or say if there has been a cooling effect. I am not quite sure but there has been better decision-making and we have won a number of very significant cases. There has also been clarification from the High Court on a number of matters.
All of those combined have led to the decrease in the overall number.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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It is unfortunate Mr. Mullan cannot explain. It is significant.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Perhaps Mr. Mullan could comment on the whole criticism of judicial reviews-----
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I was going to go on to the second part of the Deputy's question. It is not for us as an independent appeals body to make any commentary on who takes appeals or judicial reviews. That is the nature of the field. We were asked to provide to measure the statistics, shall we say, which we have provided. The breakdown is 57% are third parties, 30% were taken by an applicant for the development which I think was the Deputy's point and 13% were taken by landowners. A number were refusals of LRDs but most related to residential zoned land tax, RZLT, and whether we had given a correct decision on the application of the tax in those circumstances. We took a number of test cases around environmental issues and mass issues, etc. The laws have been clarified. I think that is another reason there has been a reduction in judicial reviews over the past year.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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Given that context, is Mr. Mullan concerned about judicial reviews? Perhaps he would have said something different this time last year in terms of the planning system and how it functions.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
There is still a significant number of judicial reviews within the system. We take the view as an organisation that when a decision is made by the commissioners following input from inspectors, that decision is a good decision and we will seek to defend it. On occasions we get it wrong and if we do we concede it quickly. Any number of judicial reviews within the system in our view is too many but I welcome that there are fewer because it is taxpayers' resources. We have to pay legal fees - it is a significant portion of the budget of the organisation. Any significant reduction is very much welcomed by An Coimisiún Pleanála.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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How does Mr. Mullan foresee it in the coming months and years?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
The trajectory it is on now will hold for a while. There will be a coming back again at some stage - whether this year or later next year, I am not quite sure. We have spent a lot of resources and time on improving the decision-making of the organisation. Following our governance changes which took place last year, we now have full-time commissioners who have no governance function. They have been working in the organisation for a number of years and there is no question the longer they work in the organisation, the better their writing and decision-making become.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I am not quite sure if Mr. Mullan will be able to answer this, given the role. In general on how planning is developing, a lot of communities have expressed concern regarding the need for critical infrastructure alongside housing, for example transport and community facilities. How does the board look at decisions? What are the macro-level planning principles which are important? There is some concern that it is just housing, housing, housing and not the essential infrastructure alongside that. In An Coimisiún Pleanála's decisions, it takes a balanced view, in my understanding, including all principles of what creates sustainable communities.
Ms Erika Casey:
All planning applications and appeals that come into An Coimisiún Pleanála are considered on their own merits in accordance with the relevant policy context, in particular the development plan. We are moving into a plan-led system. Often the land has been zoned and considered strategically at a local authority level. There is also a suite of Government guidance, in particular the section 28 guidelines, on a range of issues like density, height, flood risk and environmental factors, etc. When the commission makes its decision, that is informed by the inspector's report which sets out a detailed assessment considering the development in the context of all of that policy, and also taking into account the submissions and observations by appellants and the views of the local authority. All of those factors feed into the decision-making process and the recommendation of the inspector. It is a very balanced approach looking at all aspects of the development. All planning decisions are ultimately about proper planning and sustainable development. That is the entire tenet of the Planning and Development Act. That is the baseline of all of our decision-making. It is trying to balance all of the different and competing factors that arise in any application or appeal that comes before us.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank the witnesses for being here today. In my work in homelessness and housing supports through an organisation I set up called Tiglin, I see the direct impact on humans when housing systems fail. Delays and dysfunction in the system ultimately result in hardship for individuals and families. I also understand An Coimisiún Pleanála's role for governance, proper process and regulatory safeguards. Is the Irish planning system evolving into something that is procedurally complex and legally exposed? It seems to be very uncertain. If one looks at the number of judicial reviews - the last few speakers mentioned them already - it was outlined that an Irish citizen has a right to have their case heard but I think in 2025 alone 143 judicial reviews were lodged challenging 136 commission decisions. It seems to be a natural process that a judicial review is part of the planning process. I do not think that was the intention. Does Mr. Mullan believe the current level of litigation in the planning process suggests the planning system is no longer operating in a predictable manner? It is a tricky question.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Irish planning law is procedurally complex. My colleague, Ms Kellett, is on the strategic infrastructure side. Many of the direct applications to us are complicated. I have listened to various stakeholders outline they are engaging lawyers - and on the housing side - already at that procedural stage before they put in applications. It is complex to put the applications in. When they get the applications before us, all of our decisions are subject to judicial review. The number of judicial reviews appears to be coming down. I engaged with another speaker around that. There are a number of reasons. Better decision-making is part of that with better legal advice which we have been getting and the support of the legal unit. I am hopeful we can continue to do that because the number of decisions is coming down. We stand over all of the decisions we make. One would like to come to a point, given the professional expertise that has gone into the inspector's report and the professional expertise of the commissioners making the decision - it is an independent quasi-judicial decision and all the various parties have a right to input into that decision. One would hope that will be the final planning decision. As the Senator knows, judicial review has become part of the appeals process. That is a failure of the system. I am not questioning any right of the person to make the judicial review if they want to do that.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Is that a new thing?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
It is in terms of the number. In 2022, there were over 90. Before that, it was lower again. It has risen exponentially from 93 up to 147 and 143 last year. In the last months of last year and the beginning of this year, there seems to have been a reduction which I hope is due to better decision-making and clarifications from the High Court on a number of significant issues. Now there is less litigation on a number of those issues.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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A lot of our planning and procedural obligations arise from EU law. That EU law surely applies to other member states yet many comparable EU countries do not seem to have as much litigation regarding the delivery of housing. Why do we seem to be tipping the scale?
Ms Ciara Kellett:
The EIA directive and the habitats directive feed into the Planning and Development Act here. That is how they are transposed. We have given input into the accelerating infrastructure task force that the Minister, Deputy Chambers, set up. We gave some input in terms of complexity that perhaps Ireland has added to the EIA directive. We have given some input to that and I understand that is being looked at by the regulatory simplification unit and also in terms of the report that came out of that particular working group, the task force.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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We are taking the EU law seriously.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Maybe other member states are not taking it as seriously.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
From the engagement we had with the Department, it would appear that when you engage with an EIA in this jurisdiction, we set the thresholds at a far lower level than some of our EU colleagues. I am not making a judgment in relation to that. It is simply what happened. We are the ones then who have to deal with some smaller developments in this jurisdiction. In the case of applications that are made in sister jurisdictions, an EIA would not be required.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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Ultimately, it results in more litigation and is therefore more expensive.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Most judicial review litigation is around procedures. EIA, as the Senator knows, is quite procedural and about whether we have engaged with each of the various submissions around the 13 areas of issues that need to be considered within that, and if we have been deficient in any of those areas, that can lead to a setting aside of our decision. That is the interpretation the Department took at the time. In our view, comparative to a number of other jurisdictions, those thresholds would appear to have been set quite low, in some areas. In housing there are quite high numbers but in some of the other environmental areas for strategic infrastructure there are quite low thresholds, such as in waste and others.
Ms Ciara Kellett:
Yes, and maybe if I will give an example. For instance, the directive refers to wastewater treatment plants and 150,000 population equivalent, PE. We set a requirement for an EIA report to be developed for 10,000 PE. That is an extreme example but it is a good one in terms of how we took what was the EU directive and transposed it.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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There was an IT pilot. What are the next steps for bringing that live? I know there were huge plans and ideas for how that would progress for the ordinary citizen. Does Mr. Mullan have any information on that?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am delighted the Senator has asked me that because I have some good statistics. It went live on 20 April. There have been 110 applications to date made online. In the space of that one month since we introduced it, 67% of our appeals are now being done online. The pilot was done with a number of consultants just to see whether it would work. We introduced it as a pilot less than a month ago and it is already showing 67% of our appeals as being online so it has been a very successful pilot. In fact, it is not a pilot; it is now live. We are delighted with it. People can now make an appeal online. A number of the local authorities have not updated their websites yet in relation to how a citizen can make an appeal of one of its decisions. As they are updated, I suspect that will increase. We will never get to 100%, nor do we want to, but it was one of the things that were lobbied for with us by various representatives of the Oireachtas and of other stakeholders. Some of the environmental NGOs were saying that, because we are Dublin-based, they had to post their application or attend in person. They wanted this online facility and a representation was made. We have worked very hard over the past year or so to do that. Our director of transformation and digital services led that team and they have been able to introduce that.
Aubrey McCarthy (Independent)
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I thank Mr. Mullan.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I have to raise an issue from my constituency of Cork North-Central, in Blarney, where a medical waste facility has applied for planning permission. The coimisiún breached its own obligations by not notifying the local authority and when it did notify the local authority, the public submissions had closed, which meant local councillors were only notified after the fact. No submissions were recovered-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Before the Deputy says anything more, is this a live case?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Then we cannot discuss it.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Mullan might make a comment now, rather than there being more comments, just to speak to the specific case.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am aware of the case. Representations have been made by the Deputy to our organisation and we have responded in full to one of his parliamentary assistants on the matter. I understand the Deputy has a different view but we have taken the view that procedurally, as the legislation is set out, we have taken the various steps that are appropriate. Public notification was issued by the local authority, as I understand it. It was lodged on 5 December and then application documents were published on our website two days later. There was also local publication of the documentation in the newspapers on 4 December. That is what is statutorily required, as we understand it. I understand the Deputy's concerns but procedurally, we have followed the legislation as it was set out. If I can assist in any further way, I am happy to do that. I am happy to engage in private correspondence with the Deputy or one of his colleagues.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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Without going into the planning itself, there is the procedure and the process. There should be a weighbridge as part of that. According to the environmental report, the air quality will be------
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We are straying into the actual application.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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This is in the public domain. Is that not right?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I would prefer not to talk about a specific case if it is still live.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
What I can say is, whatever environmental concerns are shared by anybody in the vicinity of the application or generally, those are aspects that will be considered by our planning inspectors when they are preparing their report and ultimately they will feed into the comisiún's decision when the time comes.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I would ask the Deputy to desist from further comment on that.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I will respect the Chair in that regard. I was disappointed from our side. Our local councillors did not know and could not inform the community. I ask Mr. Mullan to go away and look at all of the planning permissions in Blarney. It is the first time in history that no one put in a submission. That goes to the heart of the problem. People did not know.
I will raise two other points. The Minster for justice, Deputy O'Callaghan, announced last week that there would be an extension to the new Cork Prison. The new Cork Prison came online in 2016 under a planning Act that was brought in specifically to deal with prisons in early 2012 or 2013 - in that neck of the woods. The Minister is claiming that this will be an extension. He is looking to knock the old prison that was mothballed in 2016 and put a 100-unit female prison in there and another unit with 230 male prisoners alongside the existing prison. These are separated by walls, a road and yards. Surely that cannot be called an extension and will have to go to full planning, if they are looking to put two new prisons there.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am not conscious of the geography, but if this is a live application that a decision has not been made on-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The Minister announced it only last week.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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It does not matter. If there is an application or it is a case, we cannot start to stray into individual applications.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I am only looking for clarity.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Every one of us here has individual-----
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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I was only looking for clarity. Can the Minister call it an extension when it will be two brand-new buildings?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I will just say a very general thing. The local authority will take its own view on it. It may take enforcement proceedings or otherwise but I will not get into that. Obviously, if an application comes to us, whether for retention or as an actual application, we will decide it on its merits based on whatever the requisite planning law on the matter is. I know very little about this, to be honest. There is no live application that I am aware of but what I can assure the committee is that, should anything like that come to us, it will be decided on its merits, cognisant of whatever the relevant law is and whatever the relevant planning application is.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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My final point goes back to a point someone made earlier. We welcome housing and want thousands of houses built, but I will give an example relating to constituents of mine in Glanmire. Thousands of houses were built with no extra fields, playgrounds or parks and no community centre. The Glanmire Ladies Football Club is one of the biggest clubs in not just Cork but the country. Sarsfields Camogie Club is similar. They are former county champions and their players are playing for Cork. There are hundreds of children now involved. The boys have the hurling and football but there are no extra playing facilities and it is the same for the girls. I was contacted by an athletics group in Glanmire that has nowhere to run and by another group about cricket. So many new people have moved into the community. They are looking for grounds for the GAA, athletics and all types of sports.
It reminds me of the Celtic tiger era, when there were many buildings but not enough infrastructure. There are people who built houses with planning permission but not the playgrounds, crèches and parks they were supposed to provide.
Ms Erika Casey:
I can speak only in very general terms. I cannot be locationally specific, other than to say that most applications and appeals that come into the commission concern land that has been zoned and deemed by the council to be appropriate for development. It is up to the council to plan for that zoned land in accordance with the necessary physical and social infrastructure to serve the additional population that will derive from that. The non-provision of playing facilities or crèches is an enforcement matter for the local authority. Unfortunately, the commission does not have any role in enforcement. We are purely an appellate body, so it would be a matter for the local authority to address.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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On the point on local authorities, if a local authority has not ensured that enough playing facilities, parks and playgrounds are provided, does the commission take this into account when examining submissions?
Ms Erika Casey:
Every application is considered on its own merits. Often, the planning application will have information, including on childcare facilities, and there may be audits of social and community infrastructure in the vicinity. All of those factors will be considered in the assessment of the development, but it is on a case-by-case basis.
Thomas Gould (Cork North-Central, Sinn Fein)
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The commission can assess the planning permission for, let us say, a site or two or three sites, but when it is examining it, does it not take the whole area in the round? Where there are five, six, seven or eight planning permissions, which are great to see, surely the associated infrastructure must be considered. It is not enough to say there is infrastructure for just one area. We saw all the estates that were built with no facilities during the Celtic tiger era. I come from Knocknaheeny. There was a council estate with no parks or playgrounds or anything else when I moved in. These came 20 years later. Surely we are not going to make that mistake here.
Ms Erika Casey:
All the planning applications are assessed on the basis of the county development plan, and that plan is where the policy on the necessary social and community infrastructure is set out. It is the role of the county development plan to set out where land should be zoned for open space and where recreational facilities should be provided. Regarding each application, there will be standards for the development in terms of open-space provision, maybe involving a crèche facility or other community infrastructure. We assess each application in accordance with the policy in place in the county development plan relevant to the development.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I will go back to judicial reviews. I see there were 143 in 2025. Was that an increase on previous years?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
The number is almost identical to that of the previous year. There were 147 in 2024 and 143 in 2025. If the Deputy had asked me this time last year, we would have noticed we were heading close to 200. Something happened towards the second part of the year meaning fewer judicial reviews were lodged, and we came in with a figure slightly under, or around the same, as that for the preceding year at 143.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I see that 57% of the reviews were taken by third parties.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Is that something that causes the commission concern?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
No. Historically, a higher percentage perhaps would have been taken by third parties. A new factor is that a larger percentage of applicants for developments and landowners are judicially reviewing our decisions. Where we refuse a development or make decisions on residential land tax, these decisions are now being challenged. I do not have the historical figures. If anything, the percentage has gone down.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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I see that permissions granted for some 2,441 dwellings, across all types of housing, were subject to judicial review in 2025. Refusals of permission for some 2,121 dwellings, across all types, were subject to judicial review. Those are big numbers. Is this delaying housing progress?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
The first category includes the 2,400 dwellings in respect of which third parties sought reviews of the commission’s grants of permission. If, ultimately, the High Court makes a decision confirming our decision, the units will have been delayed within the system, if the application is withdrawn. The inverse concerns where we refused permission for 2,000 units. Our view is that this was a good planning decision, but some developers have taken a different view. It is their right to judicially review our decisions, and it remains to be seen how the High Court will deal with this. On occasion, we get decisions wrong, remit them and deal with them. Our view is that in 2,400 cases in which permissions were granted there have been delays.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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Subject to delays.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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How long could these delays be?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
That is a good question. We are talking about at least a year to a year and a half for High Court litigation around housing. Again, numbers of cases before the courts are going down. Three judges have been appointed to the Planning and Environment Court. Cases are taking less time. The period would have been a year and a half but, as my colleague Mr. Baneham has indicated to me, it is probably going down now, so we are probably talking about slightly less. We are talking about a year, I would say.
Joe Cooney (Clare, Fine Gael)
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It is a long time. We are all well aware of the housing crisis, and it is delaying progress. There is no point in saying it is not. Consider the difference it would make to the country if those developments could go ahead.
We have big issues with infrastructure and large infrastructure projects that have been appealed. Is there much of that going on at the moment, or is there anything we can do to speed up the outcomes of those applications?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
As I indicated, the High Court has its own initiatives in relation to this. Three judges have been appointed. There is the lead High Court judge with two other judges. There is a specific list to deal with these types of things. Certain large infrastructure cases were prioritised and dealt with in shorter periods. A number of them were dealt with in less than six months. The court has taken an initiative to deal with some of those larger infrastructure projects. In some of those cases I am aware of, the period from our decision to the High Court decision was less than six months. Initiatives have certainly been taken in this regard.
Historically, it would not have been unknown for cases to take two and three weeks to be dealt with by the High Court. Many of the cases now are taking between one and three days, and there is a lot more case discipline being imposed by the judges in relation to that. That has certainly helped. Any case that we win in the courts, and we are winning more than we lose these days, will have involved a delay, whether of housing or of infrastructure, during the period it was in the court system.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will pick up on the issue of judicial reviews because I have some specific questions. It is always important to preface our conversations about these by acknowledging the fact that the overwhelming majority of planning applications are approved and not appealed or judicially reviewed. The most recent figures we have from the Office of the Planning Regulator show that in the year in question, around 30,000 planning applications, or 87%, were approved and only 7% were appealed to the board. Only 4% of those ended up in judicial review, so that means about 0.28% overall. That is relevant because while there is clearly a challenge with strategic infrastructure developments – the really large-scale projects – the number of challenges, though small, has a big impact.
On the housing side, the judicial review picture is fundamentally different, and that is what I would like to tease out with the witnesses. They provided me with figures at my request earlier this year that confirmed the trend we knew, which was a dramatic drop-off in judicial reviews of large developments. Strategic housing developments, SHDs, were subject to about 43 judicial reviews in 2021, and the number went right down to five in 2025. There were a couple of years in which there were no judicial reviews of large-scale residential developments, LRDs, then there was one year with two and seven in both 2024 and 2025. There was also quite an increase in ordinary appeals in 2024 and 2025, amounting to a doubling approximately. My question might not be one the witnesses are in a position to answer. On last year’s figures and those of the year before, do we have a sense of why there might have been an increase in the number of judicial reviews of LRDs? There was only a small number but it still shows a trend. Do we have any sense of why there was an increase in the number of judicial reviews related to ordinary appeals?
The figures went from consistently being 14 each year to 33 in 2024 and 22 in 2025. Again, my point is not that people should or should not be taking them, but if we understand the reasons this is happening, then perhaps other solutions can be put in place elsewhere in the planning system to mitigate it.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am looking for figures for 2025. We have a similar breakdown in respect of 2024, which I do not have to hand, but we will certainly provide those figures to the committee. Of the 143 cases last year, 41 were commercial challenges and those sorts of thing, and 31 were infrastructure related. Of the total for the housing type, from two units to 99 units, there were 22. There is a significant number of them. Amazingly, the figure for single houses was 11. Of those 33 decisions, five were for SHDs. When we add those figures together, we are talking close to 36 or 37 of the 143 cases overall being for judicial reviews of housing. I am not sure how that compares to last year off the top of my head, but we will provide that information to the committee. I would be being a little unfair on my colleague behind me to try to get that information now.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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No, I have the information here from An Coimisiún Pleanála before. In 2024, for example, there were four SHD judicial reviews, JRs, seven LRDs and 33 normal planning appeals. The total was down ten on the previous year.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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When these things are being assessed, if something is moving up or down, is there an ability to understand why? We know why there was a surge in judicial reviews of strategic housing developments. That has been well rehearsed and we do not have to go back over it. One of the positive things about the move to large-scale residential development is that JRs just collapsed.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I think it would be good if that stayed that way, but the fact is that for two years in a row there have been seven cases and they have been concentrated in very specific local authority areas. I am interested in seeing if we have a sense of why that is the case. It might be that An Coimisiún Pleanála does not.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am not sure that we have. We do the analysis and we are trying to learn. I think this is why there has been a reduction. Historically, some of our decision-making and the reasons we made refusals or consents were perhaps not as strong as they should have been. A person who has either appealed or made an observation in relation to a matter is entitled to know why we have made our decision and to get an explanation.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sure.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Our reasoning in relation to some of those decisions historically has not been good and we have been called out by the High Court on that. We have done a lot of work to improve this aspect. Equally, we have engaged with the inspectors on deficiencies in information in that regard. We have done a lot of work in that respect, too.
In relation to specific trends, a lot of the time, we take the view that we will concede cases quickly if we do not think they are strong or if we have made a mistake. If they are still in the system, we take the view that they are good decisions that we are going to defend. There have been a significant number of withdrawals and an exponential rise over the last number of years in the number of cases that have been taken to judicial review. As the Deputy knows, there is an indemnification in relation to legal fees, so people can take a challenge and there is no legal fee penalty for doing that. That is our house and we are dealing with that. It certainly encouraged-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I am going to cut across Mr. Mullan, but only because I am running out of time.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I have a couple of questions. If Mr. Mullan does not have the answer to hand, even regarding the 2025 JR data on the residential side of things, it would be good if he could provide at a later stage a breakdown of that by third party applicant or others.
That surge of SHD JRs under the previous Executive led to a significant increase in legal costs. I think it was hitting about €20 million at one point. In terms of last year and into this year, what is An Coimisiún Pleanála expecting its costs to be from legal challenges, particularly from those that are lost? I acknowledge the fact that they are reducing, but there are legacy ones still stuck in the system.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Regarding our total legal fees in 2024, I am looking at our draft annual report for 2025, which we are still going through to finalise it with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Our legal fees for last year were €12.6 million. Broken down, that was €6.3 million for our own lawyers and €6.2 million in respect of other parties' costs. There has been a big change-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That is a big drop on the high point of a couple of years ago.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Just to be clear, is that €12.6 million from 2024 or 2025?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What is the figure expected to be when the 2025 report is published?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Yes.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Okay.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I will ask my last question, and I apologise again for cutting across Mr. Mullan.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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On staffing, I am clear on the figures. An Coimisiún Pleanála has 303 staff on hand and there are currently 44 unfilled positions. Is there any expectation regarding a timeline for filling those posts? I know it is a difficult market now, particularly for planners. One assumes that, with the growing caseload and given that we have not even started talking about the maritime context yet, there will be a need for more than those additional 44 staff. Is it expected there will be a further request for sanction from the Department as the overall workload of the commission increases?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Are they included in that figure of 44?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
They are. We were 5% off a full complement previously. We had 303 out of 314. We were almost there. You never get there, because you are always between 5% and 10% down. I was very happy that we were an employer of choice and it is all good in that regard. There are now those 33 new positions. We have four competitions ongoing in relation to recruiting for those posts. There are details in the pack provided to the committee of the large number of competitions. Certainly, if the rise of 18% that we have seen in the first quarter continues, particularly in respect of strategic infrastructure developments, then we will be looking for additional staff. There are some planners-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Very quickly, because I am out of time, when was the sanction that was just granted for those 33 posts requested?
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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Sure.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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I thank Mr. Mullan.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I thank all the witnesses for being here. I apologise for missing the first part of the session. We had a briefing with An Coimisiún Pleanála in its HQ a number of months back and it was very beneficial. I thank the commission for engaging in that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have to say that I came away that day with a positive sense of where things were in terms of resources, turnaround times and things like that. I looked at the opening statement and the other information submitted. I know I am probably going to be repeating some of the questions asked.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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A lot of the discussion will focus on how quickly decisions are being made, the statutory timelines and things like that. Starting with the large-scale residential developments, there was 100% compliance with the statutory period in respect of 78 applications in 2025. Am I reading it correctly, though, that there has been some slippage this year in terms of compliance?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
We missed one case by two days. We are very disappointed. The decision was made on time. Unfortunately, we missed the timeline by two days, but we are very proud of that figure of 100%. Over the last two and a half years, I think there has been one at the very start and the most recent case. Other than that, all have been within the statutory timelines.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is what brings it down to the 95%.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay, fair enough.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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We will not argue over it. Is Mr. Mullan confident that An Coimisiún Pleanála will be able to meet the remainder of the large-scale residential development applications?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am confident. There have been discussions with my colleagues in this regard. If we are committed to meeting that timeline, it may mean, on occasion, that other cases may have to fall in behind those LRD applications. We are confident, though. It is obviously a priority of the organisation to deliver housing numbers and, by their nature, these are large-scale residential housing developments. We are committed to doing this.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is good. To pick up on the point about the collateral damage that would arise from that for smaller developments, by which I mean those with a smaller number of units, which are important in many areas around the country, where are we with that in terms of turnaround times for decision-making?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is the 18 weeks.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
-----have not been commenced yet but they will be introduced as part of the Planning and Development Act 2024. All decisions from our organisation are expected to be made within that period. As of the end of last month, 69% of all our decisions are taken within the appropriate SOP. Now, that is a blend of decisions. Some of those will be on the strategic infrastructure side of things, which are applications that, by their nature, have longer decision-making periods. There is also a stop-the-clock mechanism for further information, which would be at the local authority stage, and we have a similar type of process.
We did a pilot last year with regard to normal planning appeals. A total of 94% of them were decided within the 18-week timeline. I am concerned that the strategic cases will take resources and that those large-scale housing developments will take resources, but we have very significant resources available to us overall. Most of the time, we are able to meet the timelines, so no cases are being left behind. There are and will be delays and there are still some cases within our system that have to be decided, but we are trying to get through all of them in that period.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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So, it is not the case that the commission is prioritising the large-scale projects at the expense of the smaller scale ones.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
No. If one prioritises everything, one prioritises nothing but we do try to attend to those smaller scale developments such as Velux windows and extensions. Those are the things that the Deputy is contacted about by his constituents. Again, we try to get those out because they are relatively simple cases.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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They are straightforward.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What is the picture regarding the legacy cases the commission had been trying to work its way through?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
We have made very significant progress. We got out the oldest case in the building, which was the Galway Harbour case from 2014 or 2016. Another case involved the Galway ring road. There are a lot of those older legacy cases. I think we are down to seven cases on the strategic side. Sorry - we had seven. Four of them have been decided and there are three pre-2024 cases left. There are very few large-scale cases left.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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What can the witnesses say about those three cases?
Ms Erika Casey:
We have eight cases from before 2024. Three of those are on legal stay, so we cannot progress them, two are on further information stage, two are at commission level and one was on stay. That stay has recently been lifted and the case is now being progressed and will be discharged this quarter. Those cases are nearly all clear.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am responsible to a governing board. We report to the governing board on a monthly or quarterly basis about these historic cases. The governing board wants to see them out of the building and we want to see them out of the building, so we are managing the newer cases and also trying to get those older cases out of the building as well.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand, and I take Mr. Mullan's point about further information, but it has taken the commission a period of time to get to the further information request. Would Mr. Mullan say that that was mainly a resource issue?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
It was. In May 2023, we had 3,600 cases in the building and that was three times our workload or caseload. What that led to was cases being forgotten. "Forgotten" is the wrong word but there was a very large body of cases that could not be worked on because there were so many cases in the building. We are starting to clear most of those older cases and have made huge progress in relation to the cases that we have cleared.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Looking at the 2025 figures, the commission is deciding more than what is coming in in a given year.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is catching up all the time.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I am still trying to get a sense of how much catching up is left. Can Mr. Mullan give me the broad strokes in terms of the different types of application?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Mullan mentioned 69%.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
It is 69% overall. In respect of normal planning appeals - this is an average because it takes the older cases, which are pre 2025 and pre 2024 - 72% of those normal planning appeals were decided on time last year. The figure for 2026 was 94%, so that was very high. The figure for the vacant site levy was 67%; the figure for derelict sites was 82%; the figure for electricity cases was 67%; the figure for local authority projects, which we try to prioritise if we can with a specific team on Ms Kellett's side, was 63%; and the figure for relationship infrastructure is 78%. The timelines in relation to those are longer. We are voluntarily using the timeline of 48 weeks that have been set out in the Planning and Development Act. Those are challenging but I think we should be able to do that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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When something comes back from a court - I know of a case but I will not go into specifics - to the commission, is any timeline applicable in that instance?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
It depends on the decision of the court and possibly a part of the settlement. On occasion, a full new report and the full new environmental assessment have to be done, so that can delay the whole process. It depends on the stage it has come back on. If it is something procedural, we could try to get it out of the building as quickly as possible, but the Galway ring road is a very good example of the other side. When it came back, the environmental information was already out of date and the applicants had to go back out and do the assessment again so that we could circulate it, etc.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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My final question concerns staffing. I see the commission got sanction for up to 347 staff and is currently at 303, which is much higher than it had been in recent years. It is good to see the commission going in the right direction. When would the commission hope to have its full complement of 347 staff?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Of course, one never gets one's full complement. We were 5% short on the 314 we had, which I think was really good. It took us about a year and a half to get to that point. Four competitions are already running. I would be very hopeful that we will get them by the next six to nine months. It is a very competitive market.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is challenging.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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It is actually difficult.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is retention good within the organisation?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is good.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am the last speaker in the speaker notes but I will take a suspension for five minutes and come back in the second round. I will let Deputy Michael Healy-Rae in first as a guest when we resume after the suspension. We will suspend for five minutes.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me to ask a policy-related question. I welcome the members of the board. I wish to raise an unusual aspect of the decision-making process. When a case is referred to the board, an inspector from the board travels to whatever county it is; views, studies and reviews the files; and makes a decision on his or her recommendation. Let us say it is positive. The inspector comes back and a meeting is held. I would like to demystify the meeting because when people hear about the board having a meeting, they imagine a set-up like this. They think a lot of people are at the meeting. They think it involves a chairperson, members and the inspector giving the report. If I am saying something wrong, I want Mr. Mullan to pull me up on it and to say that I am wrong but my understanding is a board meeting can be that inspector and two other people and that constitutes a meeting. This could involve a very large-scale project or the most important thing in the whole world. It could be one person - one young boy, girl or family wanting to live on a family farm where a person would have taken an objection following on from a positive result from the local authority. Their lives, hopes, dreams and aspirations are on a piece of paper like this at a meeting and they think this is a big constituted meeting but it is literally an ad hoc gathering of an evening where there are two people plus one other person. This is what I really want to get to.
The inspector has a positive or negative report but statistics show that this is the way it usually works. That inspector has produced a positive report. The first the two other people might know about that report is when it is literally put in front of them and they might glance through it. Again, if I am saying something wrong, I ask Mr. Mullan to pull me up on it. The person who was given the time to it, namely, the inspector, is overruled. How many times does that actually happen? I ask because according to my information, it is a very regular occurrence. If that is happening in that type of a way, that is really questionable - that a respectable person would travel to a county, study the files, look at the actual building if it is a building or the proposed site if it is a site and make a decision and then two other people who might never have visited the county and might have half-looked at the report will overrule that person and then it is two to one. Is anything I have said wrong? Is my view of a constituted meeting of the board right or wrong? How regular an occurrence is it for an inspector's report and recommendation to be overturned? If an inspector came from An Coimisiún Pleanála and adjudicated on such a file in such a county or a senior inspector came from the board and adjudicated on a file, what is the difference, technically speaking? What is the difference between an inspector and a senior inspector? How regular an occurrence is it for a senior inspector to make a recommendation and to be overruled potentially by two people who might never have been in the county to which the planning application refers?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am happy to clarify the procedure. The Deputy was correct in the number of respects but incorrect in others. Since the end of 2022 and certainly in 2023 - I became a board member prior to becoming the CEO - the quorum for a meeting required by law is three board members as they were then and three commissioners as they are now. It is chaired by one party. It can be a larger number under the new Planning and Development Act when it is commenced. For a certain type of strategic infrastructure development projects and a certain level of housing projects, the quorum will be five commissioners as they are now. They are no longer board members. They are now commissioners. There are 13 at the moment and they make the decision regarding the matter.
Where the Deputy is wrong is that the quorum is a quorum of three commissioners or decision-makers. That is the requirement in law. The inspector who prepares the report whether he or she is a senior inspector or an ordinary inspector generally undertakes a site visit to the area and prepares a report. Let us take a normal planning appeal because I think that is the type of case the Deputy is talking about, although he did allude to other types of cases. It is five weeks from when it comes into our organisation. It is processed. The appeal papers are got in order. It is allocated to an assistant director of planning who allocates it to his or her regional team, which will in turn will allocate it to an individual inspector who will visit the site and prepare a report. The inspector has a nine-week period ideally to do that if all the timelines are working.
That file is then transferred with the inspector’s report and their recommendation to a commissioner. It is allocated to a lead commissioner who brings it to a meeting which, as I said, will have two other members present. They will then make a decision in that regard. Certainly, there are three members, and they are all board members. There is a lead board member. I was a board member for a two-year period, approximately. That lead board member is expected to understand the file in its entirety, including all of the appeal papers, submissions and observations and the inspector’s report in its entirety. They are expected to answer any reports in relation to that. They set out the appeal as it is and they look at the recommendation. As a body, they will then make a decision whether to follow the recommendation of the inspector.
With regard to the number of cases in which the inspector’s report is not accepted, while it varies on a monthly basis, it has been consistently around 11%, 13% or 14%, from pre-board to commission time. In the vast majority of cases – some 85%, 86% or 87% of cases - the recommendation in the inspector’s report is accepted. If the commissioners decide not to follow the recommendations of the inspector, they are required, by law, to set out in their decision the reasons they did not follow that recommendation, and they do so. That becomes part of the commission order. They set out the reasons in that regard.
I am not sure whether I missed anything. There is an issue about the senior inspector-----
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Mr. Mullan is missing one thing.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Mr. Mullan is talking about the here and now.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Before the recent changes, how regular an occurrence was it for a senior inspector to make a recommendation to grant, for instance, and when the decision was made to refuse, only two other people were in the room? This is a technical question. Am I correct that could have happened?
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
There was provision, prior to 2023 when I joined the board after its year of difficulties, for certain types of decisions to be made by two board members. It was not common for the inspector to be present in the boardroom as well. That was not common. Only the board members would have been present to make the decision - a lead board member and one other. Since the difficulties in 2022, which are well recorded, the quorum now, by law, is three. To be clear, for certain types of large cases, such as a number of the Dublin BusConnects cases, or for a number of controversial decisions like the Dublin metro case, it is not uncommon for all available board members to be present to make the decision.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I need guidance from the Chair because this is an important issue. Let us go back to before the controversies. I am speaking specifically about cases where a senior inspector – Mr. Mullan must explain again, if the Chair will allow time, the difference between a senior inspector and an inspector – went to an awful lot of trouble to go before a meeting of the board, which is not this big group of people. I want people to realise that. At that time, it could have been two people, plus the inspector. They sat in a room and the two other people had very limited knowledge of the case. I appreciate what Mr. Mullan is saying that the structures are different now and the other people have to have knowledge of the file and all of that, but I am talking about prior to the explosive revelations. We will not even say they are well-documented, but what happened is a fact and it was highly questionable. Are those cases, in which there were only two people in the room who overruled the senior inspector, not highly questionable? Think of all the hopes, dreams and aspirations behind those cases. I am coming back again to young people who were hoping to have their house. Different types of developments were shot down by two people who might have known nothing about the case, yet they were able to go against the senior inspector.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I can only talk in general terms. The percentage of cases where a decision is set aside, in other words, where the recommendation of either the senior inspector or the general inspector is not accepted, has been pretty consistently between 11% and 15% for as long I remember. My two colleagues have been in the organisation a lot longer than I have, but I understand that to be the case. We now have a system whereby the inspector presents the case, but it would have been extremely unusual for the inspector to be present in the room when a decision was being made. That certainly would not have been the procedure, as I understand, historically. It is certainly not the situation now.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Does it worry Mr. Mullan?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I am going to come in because we do not want to stray into anything about individual cases.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I am not referencing any case.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I totally accept that. Is it possible for An Coimisiún Pleanála to provide the committee with a record of the number of people present when decisions were made? I am not seeking specifics but the general number of people involved when a decision was made, whether two or three people. Is there a record of that?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
There probably would be but in reverse. We will be able to give the committee details of the small number of cases in which three people were not present. In 93% to 94% of cases, there were three persons. The quorum was three and that was the number present. We certainly will be able to provide some figures.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I ask Mr. Mullan to provide that information to the committee.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
We certainly can. I will also be able to provide the Deputy with historical figures because these are in our annual reports, which show that fairly consistent 11% to 15% of cases where the inspectors’ recommendations were not accepted. Again, by law, there is a requirement that the decision-makers, formerly known as board members and currently called commissioners, have to set out the reasons they did not accept a decision. I accept that, historically, it might have amounted to a sentence or two, but now we take that discipline a lot more seriously. It is not uncommon for it to take a half page or full page to outline why a recommendation was not accepted.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Through the-----
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have gone five or six minutes over the time, in fairness.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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Sorry.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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We are a very generous committee.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will say one final comment. Does what we are after discussing worry Mr. Mullan?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
Those procedures, as outlined to me, are not something I recognise or stand over. I assure this committee, however, that since 2023 when I joined the organisation, and in the period in which I have been CEO, such a procedure certainly does not take place. The quorum is three. A very clear procedure is set down. We have a procedures document that our governing board signed off on. We take the reputational damage to the organisation in 2022 seriously. It hurt us as an organisation. All of us, as an organisation, are not going back to that. Our governing board will ensure that we will not and will hold us to account.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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The final word I will say-----
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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To be helpful to the Deputy, the serious issues he is raising were the subject of considerable deliberation in the Planning Regulator’s report on the matter. This committee had the Planning Regulator before it previously to discuss all of that. Significant legislative and procedural reforms were put in place. It might be helpful for newer members of the committee for those reports from the regulator to be circulated because they are relevant to the Deputy's conversation.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Absolutely.
Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent)
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I will put it this way; the knowledge I have worries me.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Mullan, on behalf of An Coimisiún Pleanála, has set out the procedures going forward since he took over the role. We thank him for that.
We will move on. The last speaker in the first round is me. I will take a few minutes and then we will go back to the speaking rota for the second half of the meeting. It was mentioned that An Coimisiún Pleanála is significantly staffed as an organisation. We see the knock-on effect of that on local authorities where they are struggling with planners. Pre-planning meetings that used to take place are not taking place anymore. People are submitting planning applications and being turned down in a lot of cases, which comes at a cost to the person making the application, whereas a pre-planning meeting would iron out potential issues before the application is made.
Mr. Mullan mentioned about catching up on numbers to Deputy McGrath. At the pace An Coimisiún Pleanála is going with the number of staff it has and a potential reduction in appeals, does Mr. Mullan envisage a position where An Coimisiún Pleanála might become overstaffed? In the context of the way its output and the numbers are going, and looking ahead to the future, maybe some staff could be released back to the local authority system because local authorities are struggling across the county. The knock-on effect of that is a cost to young couples, etc., who are making applications and cannot get pre-planning meetings.
I also had a question with regard to inspector reports being turned down despite a positive decision, but Deputy Healy-Rae asked about that already.
You have answered quite clearly about inspectors' reports that were turned down despite a positive decision. Also, do you agree that, within the planning system or within the judicial reviews element, and given there are three people appointed to the High Court to deal with it, that instead of changing rules and regulations, we should employ more planning judges to deal with cases quicker? This is a recommendation that was made to this committee, with which we agreed after having discussions on it. Is there a need for more planners in the judicial system to deal with the reviews or is there a sufficient number at the moment?
Another area on which we had discussions was guidelines on solar, wind and battery storage, and these have still not been developed. If they were developed and brought in, would it make your job a little bit easier, with fewer applications ending up on your desks and those that do being a bit easier to deal with?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I will deal with the staffing issue and I will ask Ms Casey to deal with some of the initiatives that are being done with between us and the Department on the training of planning staff, because there is a huge shortage. I will ask Ms Kellett to deal with some of the guidelines because they are really relevant. We have been significantly resourced. Our numbers have plateaued. As I outlined in my opening statement, there has been an 18% increase in the first quarter so we are not quite if that continues. I do not see us running out of work any time soon. We have employed all the planners who have applied. If they want to go back to the local authorities, they may do, and some of our colleagues do go back. We will not be releasing them, per se. I do not see them being seconded back to the local authorities as a way to assist them to deal with that. Clearly, what the system needs is more planners. I will ask my colleague to outline some of the measures that have been taken, but it is not just a question of planners. We are hiring ecologists at the moment and it is extremely difficult. We are competing with local authorities, the OPW and the private sector. Ms Casey will talk about some of the initiatives that she is aware of that we are involved in.
Ms Erika Casey:
To add to what Mr. Mullan has said, the commission anticipates that we will also be receiving new functions over the next year. We anticipate new functions under arterial drainage, and Ms Kellett will speak more about this, as it is more in her house, such as the strategic gas reserve, new CPO functions, etc. We anticipate that they will also generate additional work for us. We will also have a new scoping function under the RED III directive. All of those are resource-heavy cases. Therefore, any capacity we have will be likely to be diverted into those additional functions that the commission will be receiving.
We would very much welcome guidelines. I know there are currently about 30 section 28 guidelines that are subject to review. They will become the new national planning statements under the new 2024 planning Act. There are certainly guidelines that are long overdue, including the wind guidelines mentioned by the Cathaoirleach. There are others that are very out of date, such as the telecommunications guidelines. Guidelines provide consistency and clarity to the sector. We would very much welcome those. It makes our decision-making and report writing easier. There is greater clarity for everybody when there is clear guidance for everybody to follow.
Regarding training, we recognise that there are significant deficits in the local authority sector. This has been well researched by the Department. There are at least 500 to 600 vacancies at local authority level. I know the Department is doing significant work on that through various initiatives such as the graduate programme. The Department also has a working group at the moment to look at ways that resourcing can be enhanced and increased in the local authority sector.
We are also working with the Office of the Planning Regulator, OPR, on training. Its training programme is going to be reviewed. This was last done in 2022. That is for the entire sector and we look forward to working with the OPR and our colleagues in the CCMA on this training programme to ensure that capacity, expertise and training can be rolled out to our colleagues across the sector and within the commission to further build capacity and expertise.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I want to pick up on the issue raised by Deputy Michael Healy-Rae about inspectors being overruled. I think he was probably coming at it from where an inspector made a positive recommendation and it was overruled to a refusal. I am coming at it from the other angle of where the inspector has recommended a refusal and the board recommends permission. Mr. Mullan indicated that, broadly speaking, 11% to 15% of inspector's reports are overruled. That is a broad stroke in the sense of SIDs, regular applications, etc,. Would it be proportionate across the board for SIDs and simple, one-off housing? Are we talking similar levels?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, I know. What I am getting at is the different types of application.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I do not know if we have the figures but we can certainly look for them. Intuitively, my sense would be that for the larger strategic infrastructure cases, that would be less and that the recommendation of the inspector would generally be accepted in relation to those. I would suspect that it is more on the NPA side that they would not be. That would be my intuition but I do not have the figures on it. I do not know if my colleagues would be able to help.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I would have thought it would be the other way around and that in the SIDs, the inspectors would be overruled more.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That does not bear out?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have a particular case, which I will not go into detail on, but the inspector was overruled on multiple occasions when he recommended refusal. I will not go into it any further. Mr. Mullan is saying it is similar levels and possibly less, in any case.
What irks people is the fact that the inspector is a planning professional. The inspector carries out a site visit on all occasions. Is that correct?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Has that always been the case?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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When the commissioners are overruling an inspector, they do not carry out a site visit, by and large.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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At all, ever.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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That is what irks people. A planning professional visits a site, sees the context and makes a recommendation, and this is overruled by people who are doing it as a desktop exercise and have not visited the site.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I can understand the Deputy's point, obviously, where an individual applicant has made an application and the recommendation is not followed. As I said when I responded to Deputy Michael Healy-Rae, there is a legal requirement to set out in great detail as to why that recommendation is not followed.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I understand that.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Walk me through it. An inspector does his or her job and lands the report. Is there a interaction between the commissioners and the inspector?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
No, there is not. In a limited number of cases, such as large-scale housing or SID cases, the inspector will present the case to the board and will attend the board meeting.
It is recorded on a board meeting record. It is about an hour or two of a presentation depending on the complexity of the case. They will do that. That would be the only time there is an interaction. They will answer technical questions on the application, but they will not give any opinion on it. That is the only time there is any interaction.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If I was a commissioner and I was asked to make a decision on an inspector's report, I would like the opportunity of having some questions and answers with the inspector or having some-----
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Is there something preventing that?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
There is in the sense if you want independent decision-making and if you want Chinese walls between the inspector and the members. I think historically there were concerns about interactions between inspectors and board members, so we took a very clear view on that. The inspector's report should be so comprehensive that it deals with all of the concerns and issues. The lead commissioner, who is the primary person who gets that file or is allocated it, is expected to understand that file in its entirety and then make a recommendation to the rest of the meeting.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Okay. Again, going back to the inspector being overruled by the commissioner and there is a lead commissioner, what are the qualifications of that lead commissioner? I know they are different.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Can a lawyer be a lead commissioner?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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However, a lawyer is not a planning professional.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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With the three commissioners who will make a decision, is there always at attempt to get a balance of qualifications?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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You would not have three lawyers, for example.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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You would not have three architects?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
No, because there are not three architects. It is generally a blend. If the next question is whether there is always a planner on that, I cannot say that there is. Each commissioner is expected to bring their perspective and expertise to it. All of them now have at least two to three years', and in some cases up to five or seven years', experience as decision-makers on this. They have a wealth of experience. There is a blend and it is the three together that is the magic sauce. Basically, everybody brings their particular view and expertise to make the decision.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Mr. Mullan could understand how the public would be concerned that an inspector visits a site, carries out due diligence, looks at an application thoroughly, makes a recommendation and it is overruled by commissioners who have not carried out a site visit and who may not have similar levels of planning qualifications. The lead commissioner could be someone from a legal background. Mr. Mullan can understand how people would question that process.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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Yes, it is the subset.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
To give reassurance to the public, as regards the professional expertise that each of the commissioners have, every single one of them has over two to three years' experience. We have considerable legal experience and guidance from the High Court on how decisions are made and the factors that are needed to go into those decisions. Equally then, there is considerable guidance from the High Court as to what needs to be set out where there is disagreement. However, I understand. On a human level of course I understand, but I want to try to reassure the public that the system works because of the professional expertise that is blended together, both at inspectorate level and when the commissioners ultimately make their decision. Even if it is against the inspector's report, it need to be set out very clearly what the rationale is.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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That was one of the big discussions we had during the passage of the planning and development Bill. Part of the problem is that the board was never a board in the sense that people understood it; it was a bunch of professionals who have development experience. However, it is an important question.
My final comment is more of an ask for Mr. Mullan and his management team to think about. One of the jobs of this committee is to track what is happening with all of the agencies that sit under the remit of the Department to see if they are doing a good or a bad job, identify whether there is a requirement for additional resources or policy or legislative change. It is not just that we come and we raise individual issues. Reflecting back on the crisis that emerged, not because of SHD but it was the legal challenges and all those challenges with SHD that brought it all to light, part of me is thinking it would be useful for the commission to think about a piece of correspondence with this committee - it could be twice a year - that sets out some of the core facts and figures Mr. Mullan has given us in the committee today. If this was provided as a matter of course, that would allow the members of the committee - we are all serious about the work we do here - track all of the things. An Coimisiún Pleanála will probably get into this committee once a year given the hectic schedule we have but there is all the work that goes on in between time. For example, there has been very significant progress in reducing the backlog. Some of us are pestering the staff of An Coimisiún Pleanála with questions all the time, but it is a question of what information, without data overload, would be useful to give to the committee, just as matter of course, twice a year. It could be given midway through the year and towards the end of the year. The witnesses might reflect, if they are in a position to do that, on some of the issues members are raising. We often say the board was doing its best work when nobody was talking about it. It was just getting on with the decisions. There was very little controversy. Individual people may have been happy or unhappy. However, it has been through a very tough period. Therefore something of that nature might be useful. It might be something the witnesses could have a think about. Other organisations are now doing it. The RTB, for example, is doing a quarterly director's report. It is a really good publication and really helps us track. I am not at all suggesting An Coimisiún Pleanála needs to do something quarterly but that would be useful.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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Just to cut in there, a meeting in An Coimisiún Pleanála similar to the event both myself and Deputy McGrath attended, that is, an organised meeting to ask questions, would be useful along with the update reports.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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The value of the publication is, we spend a lot of time in these committees getting An Coimisiún Pleanála to give the data, which is really important because it is on the public record and members of the public and other interested parties can get it. However, other organisations have moved to a kind of relatively light reporting. Looking at the RTB director's report as a possibility, it is only five or six pages. It is not data heavy and it is not a huge piece of research. I just wanted to say that.
The other thing is just an observation. I travel around the country in my spokesperson's role. While acknowledging the progress of large-scale residential developments in terms of the statutory timelines, the improved quality of decisions, and, comparable with SHDs, the dramatic reduction in judicial reviews, for the smaller builder-developer, who in many cases is the builder-developer building in places other than Cork city, Dublin city or the greater Dublin area, they do not have access to LRD, and we will often hear complaints about how when they are appealed, which is just the nature of the system, the appeals can take a very long time. I am not at all speaking about any individual case or any evidence I have of a trend, but it is something I would be interested to hear about either today or at a later stage for those sub-100 units applications. If we are going to see a dramatic increase in the output of new homes, particularly in the counties represented by lots of the Deputies here, that SME sector is key and they are not benefiting from LRD. Therefore, if the witnesses have any observations or data trends on that, either that they can share with us today or at a later stage, I would be interested.
Mr. Mullan said at the start that sometimes you can have too much data. Lots of the conversations we have in public and in the political arena about planning are very often based on perceptions that are not borne out by the facts. We had a really interesting conversation with a couple of local authorities about rural planning. We do not have, for example, comprehensive data from across all local authorities about the number of one-off housing planning applications submitted each year or the number that are approved or rejected. However, we had two rural local authorities before this committee and I think it surprised the members that they have an approval rating for one-off applications of 80% to 90%, and my understanding is that this is not unusual. Again, with the SME sector, if there was data that was there, I would have said there is no disadvantaging of them, that their stuff is moving through. I suppose what I am really talking about is the ordinary appeals for non-LRDs.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
There are three things the Deputy has mentioned there. Certainly, we are very happy to provide correspondence to this committee. As the Cathaoirleach has acknowledged, we invited some of the members of the committee last year and some were able to come over to us. We are delighted to be able to come before the committee to clarify this.
We provide data on a quarterly basis. It is on our website. Having looked at it last night, perhaps it could be made more accessible. I will certainly have a look at the director's report of the RTB. As I looked at the report that we provide on a quarterly basis on our website, I noted that it is very data heavy. What is needed is clear, accessible information points that people understand and reflect on us as a good organisation. I will certainly reflect on that. I am happy to correspond with the committee and provide the data, but it is there in the statistics on our front page. Perhaps it is not as accessible as it could be, however.
We can provide a specific answer to the Deputy on in relation to cases involving between 30 and 99 units. Representations were made to us last year by a number of sectors. That was exactly the cohort that we needed to look at. I will ask Ms Casey to talk about that.
Ms Erika Casey:
We are seeing an increase in those smaller mid-size residential developments, the 30- to 99-unit cohort. As part of our comprehensive stakeholder programme, we engaged with the Construction Industry Federation and the Irish Home Builders Association. They had also identified that issue. When we were looking at the backlog last year and trying to clear the cases, we prioritised what we call the category of 30-plus cases. Over 2025, we cleared 131 of those cases. There are currently only seven 30-plus cases that have passed the statutory objective period. Six of those have been inspected and one is at commission level. We expect that decision very soon. The six that were inspected are actively being worked on. One was a remittal, so there has been delay with circulation, etc.
Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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What is the statutory period for those 30-plus developments?
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I welcome the witnesses. We all gave out stink about An Coimisiún Pleanála because it took so long to do anything when I was on Laois County Council. We would try to get people to agree or not disagree before taking an appeal to An Bord Pleanála because of the length of time it was taking. That was the biggest problem. Only recently, a person in County Laois applied for a bigger unit. It took 17 months. Does An Coimisiún Pleanála realise by how much the cost of building has gone up in 17 months? That is totally outrageous, if the Cathaoirleach does not mind me saying so. Nothing should take 17 months, to be fair about it. That went through the procedures of Laois County Council at the time and it took 17 months when it went to An Bord Pleanála.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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We have to be careful. We cannot speak about specific-----
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am speaking about the length of time. Does the Cathaoirleach agree that it should not take 17 months?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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No, but I advise Deputy Aird that he cannot speak about specific cases.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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What is the length of time for one-off cases, for example, a single house in a rural area?
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I agree. We cannot mention specific cases or identify locations. That is my role.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I am not asking Mr. Mullan to comment. I am just telling him the time it took.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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A single house in a rural area will take-----
Mr. Peter Mullan:
We are striving to get closer to 90% or 100%. We are at 69% at the moment. A lot of work has been done and there is more work to do. As I said, that is a blend of cases. It involves complicated cases where there will be longer periods and cases on the MPA side that have an 18-week period. We are striving to achieve that and there is still work to be done. There was an historical backlog, as I outlined. That is why a lot of those cases were caught up behind other cases. We are getting to them.
Last year, in relation to rural houses, which will go in on Ms Casey's side, 94% of our cases for rural houses in 2025 were dealt within the 18-week period. We are striving to continue that percentage as we head into 2026. I think that is fair. Ms Casey may have something to add in relation to that.
Ms Erika Casey:
No. We have a very small backlog of cases of less than five units, which would include some single rural houses. Twenty-five of those are left in the backlog, which we are actively clearing at the moment. In everything else, we are moving toward that statutory objective period compliance period of 18 weeks, which is our normal timeframe for decisions on a normal planning appeal. That is the timeframe that we are aspiring to achieve and actively achieving.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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That is welcome because the biggest fear people have is that when they make an appeal to An Coimisiún Pleanála, it will take a long time. It was taking up to nine months for some people to get a reply. To be fair, that was very difficult.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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I will ask a final question. When it comes to local needs, different local authorities have different things. An Coimisiún Pleanála comes down and looks at the local need when someone is refused because of local need. I have seen reports that An Coimisiún Pleanála has sent back in cases where Laois County Council the application. The person who objected then appeals to An Coimisiún Pleanála and I have seen cases where the board has said the local need was stretched. Local need is huge in rural Ireland. It is a very thin line and the goalposts change the whole time as regards local need.
As an elected public representative, I have to ensure that schools stay open in rural areas in my constituency. I can no longer say that about the post office, as Mr. Mullan would know more than anyone. They have gone. Most places do not even have a place where you can get bread. You might get milk because of the dairy farmers, but you will not get bread. We are trying to protect rural areas in our counties. This local need issue is a problem. We accept all the other things every time. The hen harrier is a problem now in its own right. The point I am trying to make is that I have always had problems with this local need issue. Having said that, it is a thin line because somebody has the right to say that because someone was born in an area, their children will have an entitlement to live in the area but if someone was born 100 yards down the road, they have no entitlement to live in the same rural area. This issue needs a lot of discussion.
When people come to me, or any other public representative, we find it impossible to defend the local need rule. I have known people who, before the local need rule came in 15 or 20 years ago, were pivotal in the local GAA or local church. They can be people who advocate for biodiversity in the area. They are leading out on all of those. Today, they would not be allowed to build a house in a rural area. There needs to be a discussion about this because it is not fair that people are being excluded from building in a local area because of where they lived previously or because they were born down the road or up the road.
Heretofore, people who would have attended schools in a rural area would be entitled to planning permission, but now a lot of schools are closing or have closed in those rural areas. That means another problem is set to grow. People like those in An Coimisiún Pleanála get this. I read a lot of the cases that were adjudicated on by An Bord Pleanála through the years. I have to say very publicly that all the planners I have dealt with over many years did what they could within the confines of the rules laid down to grant planning permission to people.
There are young couples looking for a future together, who have saved up and have an investment, who go to a preplanning meeting and will never be told "Yes" or "No", because they cannot it; it is a person's right to put in a planning application. Nowadays, having spent €6,000 or €7,000 and getting further information to do an archaeological study, a study on the hen harrier or whatever it may be, and they are up to €10,000. The council then grants permission and it goes to An Bord Pleanála, which comes back with a response to say the local need is stretched. It beggar's belief. I know the witnesses are working within certain conditions, but behind all those refusals that are made, there are people who have spent maybe €10,000. It takes a lot of gathering for two young people, or a young person on their own, to get €10,000. I always made the case that if you go down and stand on the corner and start busking, it would be a long time before you would come out with €10,000. There has to be respect; that is all I am saying, but I thank the witnesses for the work they are doing.
Ms Erika Casey:
The Deputy has raised a strategic issue. Again, as an appellate body, we assess every appeal for every rural house in accordance with the county development plan in place. Some rural housing is not refused for local need issues; it might be refused on a traffic or environmental ground or some other issue. When it comes to local need, most county development plans will set out very detailed policy and it is up to the applicant to demonstrate that. A detailed assessment will be set out in the inspector's report to evaluate and assess that, while also highlighting where there may be a deficit of information or a non-compliance issue. It should be clear to the applicant what the issue is and if they are able to address it. We are bound by the county development plan and the policy that has been set out and adopted locally by that county. Ultimately, the plan has been developed by the elected members of that council.
I am aware the Department is reviewing the rural housing guidelines. The guidelines currently in place are very old and out of date. I understand new rural housing guidelines are imminent, and that will hopefully provide further clarity. Of course, as a body, we will be obliged to have regard to those. There may be an opportunity for the Deputy to contribute to that review as a ministerial guidance document.
William Aird (Laois, Fine Gael)
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You cannot overrule the person that gave the planning in the local authority as well. He or she is also a professional. The witnesses are overruling them and telling them they were wrong to grant the planning permission.
Rory Hearne (Dublin North-West, Social Democrats)
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I have a question on the issue of non-completed planning permissions. We know there are 40,000 in the Dublin region. An Coimisiún Pleanála is granting planning and it is about the creation of sustainable communities, which was discussed earlier. Do the witnesses have a concern that when they grant planning, there are issues with the development of a certain amount of that planning and how much the planning system is used by private actors to engage in speculation and how much the planning system is used for that purpose? While the intention of granting planning permission is for something to be built, in some cases, the land is not built on and it is instead speculated upon in order to wait until land values rise? That is why for a long time, there has been the proposal to implement the Kenny report. Do the witnesses have a comment on that general issue of non-commenced planning notices and the system around it?
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I will defer to one or two of my colleagues, after I have given some general observations.
Our primary concern is whether the application or the appeal before us has merit in relation to the planning application. We make a decision on that basis, taking into account the county development plan, the national guidance around density, etc. That will be made on its own merits. Once it leaves our building, it is functus officio; the planning decision is there. Of course, we would have a desire as citizens, for those planning permissions to be implemented but our role has finished in that regard. We have no compliance function or enforcement function; we have no function in that. I am reading in the media of developments that have not been built, etc., and as a citizen, I am concerned about it. However, as an organisation, I have no official view in that regard.
Ms Erika Casey:
Similarly, we are an appellate body so we are dealing with case-specific appeals against housing. It is well-versed and there are many statistics available to the Department on housing uptake and the lack of permissions that have been implemented. However, that is a matter for other organisations and the Department to deal with. There is now a housing activation office in place in the Department looking at the reasons and rationale as to why permissions are not being implemented, whether that is because of speculation, viability or other issues. However, that is not a matter for the Commission to comment on or engage with.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank the witnesses for that. Do members have any further questions?
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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I have just one comment. I agree with Deputy Ó Broin regarding the need for more structured information flow between ourselves, and I agree with the Chair that the session we had in the commission's offices on Marlborough Street was very effective. That was probably over 12 months ago.
Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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If that invitation came again, we would take it up because it was a good session to meet the team, as well as to pass on our gratitude, because that certainly informed me. I understand An Coimisiún Pleanála had been getting some criticism and so on, certainly in public interviews.
I made the point that the commission has been making a lot of progress, and that has to be acknowledged. There is a lot of backlog to work through, as well as staffing and resourcing issues and so on, but significant progress has been made. A high percentage of appeals are being met within the statutory recommended period, and the Commission is obviously trying to improve that, based on what we have heard here today.
I thank the witnesses for their work. It is a critical part of the housing issue to get decisions out there as quickly as possible, but also getting the right decisions out. From our point of view, it is important that An Coimisiún Pleanála is properly resourced and that the turnaround time is continuously being improved and worked on. As I said, as a Government TD, it is a top priority for us to try to improve housing supply, and the Commission has a critical role in that in terms of decision-making.
I thank the witnesses for their work; keep it going.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I found that meeting that was mentioned very informative. It made me aware of stuff I was not aware of previously, and as Deputy McGrath said, we were then able to say to people that changes were coming, with percentages increasing and more staff coming into the organisation. That information flow was important in getting that out to the public.
The figures the witnesses have presented show that the output now is getting to a situation where decisions can be made in a format similar to the planning application within the local authority that is done in a certain number of weeks. That is the certainty people want, particularly with the standard application. I acknowledge a lot more work needs to go into the large-scale strategic ones but the situation we want to get to is people knowing the commission's standard single housing or small development application can be turned around in a short time.
I would still love to see some staff down from the local authority to do pre-planning meetings because the knock-on effect is somebody possibly losing thousands of euro due to the cost of a planning application that was headed in the right direction in a pre-planning meeting. That is extremely important.
I thank the witnesses for today, and I look forward to the opportunity, which we might pencil in for next year, to meet in their offices again. We will try to get all the members of the committee there. That six-monthly report might be forwarded into the committee, and we could circulate it to members. That is also a good idea. Having that information flow between the two organisations is very important.
Mr. Peter Mullan:
I am very happy to take all those observations on board. We have got better at the information flow and stakeholder engagement. We will work on a number of information and data heads to provide to the committee.
We will certainly do that on a six-monthly basis; we are happy to do that.
Micheál Carrigy (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)
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I thank everyone for their time and for assisting the committee with our deliberations. We will suspend until 6 p.m. when we will consider other matters in private session.