The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, today (Monday, August, 26) confirmed that he has temporarily increased the maximum number of “ordinary board members” that may be appointed to the board of An Bord Pleanála from 14 to 17.
Minister Darragh O’Brien also announced that he has appointed eight new full term, ordinary board members to An Bord Pleanála, following an open recruitment process.
These new full-term board members will take up their positions from September 2, 2024.
According to Minister O’Brien, the board of An Bord Pleanála “has been through a challenging period in recent times but, with the help of a number of temporary board members, the board is now in a position of stability”.
The national independent planning body not only decides appeals on planning decisions made by local authorities but also on direct applications.
According to An Bord Pleanála’s latest figures up to the end of June 2024, 1,865 cases were “disposed of” by its board, which represents an increase of 76% from cases disposed in the same period for 2023.
Minister O’Brien said: “With the increase in resources, including an increase in sanctioned staffing levels to 313, the decision making capacity of the board has continued to steadily improve during 2024.
“With these eight full term appointments now confirmed, I expect that trend of increased decision making will continue and that the primary focus of the board will be on clearing the backlog in the short to medium term”.
An Bord Pleanála
According to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage “significant progress has been made in reducing the backlog of cases with a full complement of board members in place”.
It added that An Bord Pleanála is “working to address the backlog of cases” that are currently awaiting a decision as quickly as possible.
However Senator Victor Boyhan, a member of the Oireachtas Housing and Planning Committee, said that while he welcomed the appointment of additional board members there also needs to be additional staff recruited to An Bord Pleanála.
The senator is hopeful that the new appointments should speed up planning determination by An Bord Pleanala but he has also called on the minister to ensure that the board is now given the resources “to rapidly extend its IT planning functions and capacity”.
Senator Boyhan has described the current backlog of appeals that are awaiting a final decision from the quasi-judicial body as “unacceptable”.
“An Board Pleanála has cited for too long issues around workload and timeline pressures for delays in finalising its decisions, that cannot be continue to be the standard norm”.