Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Under Section 126 of the Planning and Development Act 2000-2014, An Bord Pleanála has a statutory objective to determine appeals within 18 weeks. Where the Board does not consider it possible or appropriate to reach a decision within 18 weeks (e.g. because of delays arising from the holding of an oral hearing), it will inform the parties of the reasons for this, and will indicate when it intends to make its decision. The compliance rate with the statutory objective period, and the average length of time taken by An Bord Pleanála to determine appeals over the last five years, is set out in the following table:

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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My Department publishes a wide range of planning statistics, including data on the planning applications and decisions made by planning authorities. The most recent statistics are broken down by planning authority and are available on my Department’s website at: www.environ.ie/en/Publications/StatisticsandRegularPublications/PlanningStatistics/FileDownLoad,41081,en.pdf

While this data does not include a breakdown of decisions by category, a breakdown of planning permissions granted by functional category e.g. residential, commercial, agricultural and industrial buildings, is provided by the CSO on a quarterly basis. The most recent data can be found at the following weblink:

www.cso.ie/en/releasesandpublications/er/pp/planningpermissionsquarter12015/#.VZzyq2xOO71.

Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)
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217. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will provide a definition of architectural conservation. [27797/15]

Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael)
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Insofar as the Planning and Development Act 2000 is concerned, there is no definition of architectural conservation, but “architectural conservation area” has the meaning assigned to it by Section 81(1) of the act, that is, a place, area, group of structures or townscape, taking account of building lines and heights, which is of special architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social or technical interest or value, or contributes to the appreciation of protected structures, and the relevant planning authority is of the opinion that the inclusion of an objective in its Development Plan for the preservation of its character is necessary to achieve such preservation.

Also, pursuant to Part IV of the Act, planning authorities have an obligation to create a record of protected structures (RPS) which includes all structures or parts of structures in their functional areas which, in their opinion, are of special architectural, historical, archaeological, artistic, cultural, scientific, social or technical interest, for the purpose of protecting such structures, or parts of structures.