Sir, – I welcome the recent well-reasoned contribution by Robin Mandal in The Irish Times (Letters, June 26th) on the planning process and judicial review.
This clearly identifies the counter arguments against the current process under which the Strategic Housing Development initiative operates, notably the importance to ordinary citizens of the safeguards afforded by judicial review.
That said, it is pertinent to point out that for the average citizen, unless extremely wealthy, access to this process is virtually impossible, even if, as it now transpires from recent judicial review outcomes, these frequently lie in their favour.
Deep pockets are required meaning that in many cases mounting such a review is financially impossible. This cannot be fair given that the pockets of developers are many times greater. The democratic process demands a level playing field. – Yours, etc
ALLEN MORGAN,
Dundrum,
Dublin 14.