The number of planning appeals being lodged with An Bord Pleanála by the public has dropped significantly, prompting calls by An Taisce for the Government to revoke contentious parts of the Planning and Development Act, 2000.
In October less than half the appeals of the previous January had been lodged. Yesterday Mr. John O'Sullivan, planning officer with An Taisce, attributed the massive drop in appeals to the new regulations which came into force in March as part of the Planning and Development Act. He said these were now beginning to impact on the number of appeals lodged.
As part of the new regulations, if third parties wish to appeal local authority planning decisions, they must first have objected at local authority level.
Also there is now less time in which to make a submission, with a five-week deadline imposed by county councils. Objectors are now also required to pay €20 along with any objection.
Mr O'Sullivan said: "We argued that these regulations are a curb on people's participation in the planning process, and these figures confirm this. I am not surprised by them.
"The drop in appeals is a reflection of fewer people taking part in the process, and this represents a victory for the developers' lobby."
Mr O'Sullivan said that An Taisce had been getting feedback from people across the country who had been having difficulty in lodging appeals with An Bord Pleanála due to difficulties securing receipts from local authorities for objections lodged.
"It is causing huge problems, and more and more people can't participate in the process, and these regulations should be revoked. It is a fundamental right for a person to participate in the planning process," Mr O'Sullivan said.
The environment group, Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE), led a campaign against the introduction of the €20 fee earlier this year. Yesterday a spokesman said the fee "above all else is the result of the falling planning appeal rate".
However, the director of the Irish Home Builders' Association (IHBA), Mr Ciaran Ryan, said that the primary reason for the fall-off in appeals was the drop in planning applications lodged to local authorities.
"Our own analysis shows that there has been a 60 to 65 per cent drop in applications being lodged for houses this year on 2001 figures. The Planning and Development Act has had an impact on the appeals, but the main reason is the drop in applications."
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment and Local Government said that for the first six months of this year there had been a drop of 20 per cent in planning applications to local authorities on the corresponding period for 2001, with a total of 31,849 applications lodged to the end of June compared to 39,880 for the same period last year.
