Courts not place for applications once planning gone through

RTÉ News​

09-05-2025

The courts are not the place for planning applications to be decided once the planning process has gone through, Taoiseach Micheál Martin has said.
He was speaking at the official opening of a wastewater treatment plant in Arklow, Co Wicklow.
At the event Uisce Éireann CEO Niall Gleeson said objections to infrastructure projects are not helping the environment, are costing the taxpayer millions and are stopping young people from getting homes.
Minister for Housing James Browne was also at the official opening of the Uisce Éireann's Arklow Wastewater treatment plant, a €140 million project delivered on budget and six months ahead of its construction deadline.
Mr Gleeson contrasted the project with another similar one in north Dublin, that got planning the same year as Arklow but has been held up by judicial reviews ever since.
He said the common good is not being served by people using judicial reviews when they do not like decisions of An Bord Pleanála, and it costs the taxpayers and the state millions.
"Environmentalists are really just effectively delaying projects, I mean we are … the environmental improvers here. We are improving the environment", Mr Gleeson said.
He understands people have concerns but "others are just serial objectors, and they are not adding any value and in fact the common good is being ignored in this whole process".
Responding to Mr Gleeson's comments, Mr Martin said they have set up a new division in the Department of Public Expenditure to examine the delivery of new projects on time.
The Taoiseach said wastewater treatment plants are one of the "most effective things to clean up water, the environment, the rivers estuaries and the seas" and the judicial review process is being streamlined.
"We just passed a Planning Bill. It took us four years to get what was a fundamental re-evaluation of our planning system and the Minister will be bringing forward proposals in terms of the establishment of the Planning Commission, which I think will help and through that Act we have streamlined the JR process also.
"That has to be commenced now, but we do have a written constitution so these are not issues you can sort out at the stroke of a pen."
Mr Martin also said the courts should not be where planning applications are decided.
"Once we go through planning, once you go through the local authorities, once you go through An Bord Pleanála, the pre-planning for all of that, the courts should not be ultimately the place where planning applications to get determined in my view."
The Taoiseach also said there is a review of the National Development Plan ongoing, and they will allocate additional money to Irish water "at scale" for additional projects, parts of which will be ringfenced for the growth of towns to allow for development of housing.