During the week Mr. Justice Edwards ruled, with 'very great regret' against a couple in County Meath and agreed that the local County Council were entitled to a demolition order for their two-storey home, which was built without planning permission.
Their house, which they have lived in since December 2006, is 6,229sq.ft house; more than twice the size of a previous planning application submitted by the couple for which permission was refused. The couple, who have three children, had been refused planning permission for a number of different sites and gave a sworn statement that they had become 'totally frustrated' with the planning process and went ahead with the building of the property.
The judge said their breach was not a "minor infraction" but "a flagrant violation of the planning laws" which was "completely unjustified". He said that the law must be upheld and they had brought this on themselves.
After the ruling some commented how surprising it is that “neither the bank nor the engineer that was signing off on the stage payments for the property never sought to ensure that the building was in compliance with the (non-existent) planning permission.”
In unison, many say there is neither rhyme nor reason to the Irish Planning Permission Process / law or no logical sense to a planner’s requests and demands. The planning process here seems to be extremely expensive, protracted, and full of endless vagaries and continues to be conducted behind closed doors.
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