John Gormley (Dublin South East, Green Party)

Under section 247 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, a person who has an interest in land and who intends to make a planning application may, with the agreement of the planning authority concerned, enter into pre-application consultations in respect of the proposed development. The section also provides that the planning authority must not unreasonably withhold its consent to a request for such consultations.

In June 2007, my Department issued guidelines for planning authorities in respect of development management. These guidelines are a step-by-step guide to all stages of the planning application process and they begin with pre-application consultations. The guidelines were issued under section 28 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 and planning authorities are obliged to have regard to them in the performance of their planning functions. A copy of the guidelines is available on my Department's website.

The guidelines strongly promote the benefits of pre-application consultations, because they provide a planning applicant an opportunity to discuss the merits of a proposal for development at an early stage. They state that every effort should be made to facilitate, as far as is practicable, reasonable requests for pre-application consultations and that planning authorities should aim to facilitate such requests as soon as possible, but in any event within two to three weeks. Pre-application consultations also provide a planning authority with an opportunity to play a proactive role in guiding a project, from its inception, in accordance with proper planning and sustainable development principles.

Overall, in the region of 25,000 pre-application consultations take place annually. As the number of planning applications has fallen significantly — from 92,600 in 2006 to 64,000 in 2008 — planning authorities should be in a position to commit additional staff resources to facilitate requests for pre-planning consultations.

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