Planning Issues Seanad Éireann — 2026-06-25 ============================================================ Christopher O'Sullivan (FF), Cork South-West I thank Senator Costello for raising this issue. It is an interesting one and certainly provides food for thought in regard to the Part 8 process, how it works and how effective it is. I will go through the Part 8 process to explain how it works and then add a couple of comments afterwards. The local authority own development approval process, commonly referred to as the Part 8 process, is set out under section 179 of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended, and the associated Part 8 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001, as amended. Part 8 approval is a reserved function of elected members. Part 8 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 establishes the statutory procedure through which a local authority may undertake development on its own behalf. The process is designed to ensure transparency, public participation and democratic oversight in relation to development projects. Article 81 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 requires that the local authority give notice of a proposed development in an approved newspaper and must fix a site notice or site notices on the land on which the proposed development would be situated. Article 81(2) of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 sets out the information that must be included in the public notice for a proposed Part 8 development by a local authority. The plans and particulars relating to a proposed development are required to be available for inspection for a period of not less than four weeks beginning on the day of the publication of the notice. Any submissions or observations in respect of a proposed development can be made during this period or a period of not less than two weeks after the end of the period for inspection. This equates to a period of not less than six weeks for the public to submit any observations or submissions. The planning authority sends similar notices during this period of time to prescribed bodies to afford them the opportunity for input. Following on from the end of the consultation period, the chief executive of the planning authority is required to prepare a report summarising and outlining the submissions received, while evaluating the planning merits of the proposal. The report includes a list of the persons or bodies who made submissions in accordance with regulations and may also include recommendations regarding amendments or mitigation measures where appropriate. The elected members are required to consider the report before making a decision on the proposal in the interests of proper planning and development. The statutory process affords the opportunity for consultation before a decision is made by the elected members on a Part 8 proposal. I guess that outlines the Part 8 process. The Senator already knew that; she already knows exactly how it works. To answer her question in terms of transparency, the comments on each submission and why submissions may have been rejected or accepted, it appears to be down to each local authority and there seems to be a bit of a case-by-case basis involved. I am not sure if the Senator was ever involved in a Part 8 process. I certainly was. In Cork, there certainly were examples where there might have been a major housing development that was given planning permission under Part 8, and where there was quite a lengthy back-and-forth process between the chief executive and his team and the members of the council. I found it quite effective in that where local residents might have raised concerns, we were able to tease them out. I think the whole point of the Part 8 process is that it does actually in many ways give more of an input from the public. They have two opportunities to have a say in the in the final scheme. They can place a submission during the public consultation period, but also they have their members who, at the end of the day, will be the ones making the decision. What I picked up from the reply was that the chief executive may include a comment on each individual submission. Maybe that is where things can be teased out further going forward. Maybe there should be requirements to actually put in a comment on each submission. I get the Senator's point. There may be valid submissions made, but the chief executive's report may not include a detailed response as to why that submission was not taken into account. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-06-25/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:55:07+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-06-25