Dublin City Council planner throws cold water on plea to publish more about planning enforcement cases

Dublin City Council should make its planning enforcement process more transparent to the public, as other councils in Ireland do, council planning committee member Sebastian Vencken proposed in a motion at a meeting last Wednesday.

At the moment, a person can complain if they think someone is building something without planning permission (a fence, a shed, 29 houses), operating a short-term let without permission, or has planning permission but isn't following its terms.

The council has a planning enforcement section – with "30 staff working" in it, the chief executive recently told a councillor – which handles these complaints.

They might find there's no problem, they might come to an agreement with the property owner to fix a problem, or they might even take a property owner to court.

But all of this happens kind of behind the scenes.

There's no easy way for a member of the public to find out whether a complaint has been put in about something, whether the council's on the case, and at what stage of the planning enforcement process that case is.

To find that out, people have to email the council, or go into the Civic Offices at Wood Quay to inspect the planning enforcement register.

In his motion, Vencken made a slew of arguments about why putting this register online would be good: reduce admin and duplication for council staff, help deter property owners from doing the wrong thing, build trust with the public through transparency, and more.

He also pointed out that other councils in Ireland already make planning enforcement register data available online.

The response? Planning Enforcement Manager John Downey, hadn't made it to the meeting to give a planned presentation on planning enforcement, so City Planner Emer Uí Fhátharta stepped in to respond to the motion.

"The motion is noted, but the planning enforcement system is an operational matter for Dublin City Council," Uí Fhátharta said at the meeting.

In other words, how the executive side of the council handles this is up to them, and not something that councillors and other committee members have any power over.

"We comply with the statutory requirements in maintaining a register, and there is no requirement to have it up online," Uí Fhátharta said.

After the meeting, Vencken said by email that he'd found that response "unsatisfactory".

The council's planning committee will discuss the issue further when Downey attends in September, said committee chair Cian Farrell, a Social Democrats councillor, at the meeting last Wednesday.

The case for transparency

In a 2023 "practice note" on planning enforcement, the national Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR), said that unlike planning applications – where complete planning files are open to scrutiny and available online – "many planning authorities retain the majority of the enforcement file as private documents".

"The inability to access information can in some instances unnecessarily frustrate those engaging with planning enforcement sections including complainants, elected members and those parties that may be the subject of the enforcement action," the OPR practice note said.

"The documents, as set out in the Development Management Guidelines, should be readily available to view with sensitive data retained as private by the planning authority," it said. "However, details which could reveal the identity of a person who has given information in confidence should not be disclosed."

In support of his motion at last Wednesday's meeting of the Planning and Urban Regeneration Strategic Policy Committee (SPC), Vencken presented his own arguments.

If someone was concerned about a developer building, say, 29 houses without planning permission, and was considering complaining to the council, they could check an online register to see if the council already knew.

If someone had put in a planning enforcement complaint, and wanted to know how the council's investigation and, if appropriate, enforcement efforts, were proceeding, they could check an online register.

This would free up staff in the planning enforcement section from dealing with duplicate complaints, and repeated requests for status updates, said Vencken, of the Broadstone Basin Residents Association, who was elected to the committee via the Dublin City Public Participation Network.

"I have frequently reported potential planning violations to the council and I find it cumbersome to have to follow up on cases individually by email, It must also be cumbersome for DCC officials to be constantly answering these emails," said Vencken.

Being able to see how, and if, a case is progressing, would also build trust among residents concerned about an issue, that the council was dealing with it, said Vencken, who is also a member of the new North City Centre Residents’ Alliance.

Also, putting the planning enforcement register online could act as a deterrant to bad behaviour, Vencken said. "Public visibility acts as a natural deterrent against unauthorised developments," he said.

"This is this is also a civic matter as it concerns the public’s (incl SPC members’) access to information that they need to contribute to DCC policy and consultations," he said.

Responding to his motion at the meeting last Wednesday, Uí Fhátharta stressed that the issue was "an operational matter", and said the council was already complying with its legal requirements.

"Do we need to do it better? Yes. Are we looking at a broader digitisation of the planning service? Yes, there's a national digitisation programme underway and pretty well advanced," Uí Fhátharta said.

"But in terms of Dublin City Council bringing forward a new system itself immediately we will be waiting for the [national] digitisation [programme]," she said.

But some other councils in Ireland already put planning register information online, Vencken pointed out at the meeting.

Later, he pointed to Monaghan County Council, which makes available on its planning enforcement web page a spreadsheet listing planning complaints, saying when they were received, what property and issue they were about, and where they are in the process.

He also pointed to Kilkenny County Council, Kildare County Council, and Galway County Council which publish information about planning enforcement on the same maps where they publish information about planning applications.

Compared to Monaghan, this is more limited information: maybe just the planning enforcement case number associated with a property, maybe also the case status.

If these other, smaller councils can do it, why can't Dublin City Council?

"My guess is that there's no other real reason not to do this than avoiding potential lawsuits – which I think the council would be able to win," Vencken said by phone on Tuesday.