New bill will ‘speed up’ judicial reviews of infrastructure projects

The Cabinet has approved a bill which will seek to minimise delays in planning processes, which have been blamed for Apple’s decision to pull out of a planned €850 million data centre in Athenry, Co Galway.

The new bill will introduce a new criteria to determine whether an applicant has sufficient interest to instigate a judicial review of developments such as roads, railways, housing schemes and hospitals.

According to The Irish Times, this will take account of factors including how far an applicant lives from the proposed development, and will halve the time period to leave for apply for judicial review.

A spokesperson for the Irish Government said: “While it is essential that planning decisions go through independent and transparent planning processes, and respect all national and EU environmental and other obligations, it is also in the public interest that decisions are taken in as timely and efficient a manner as possible.”