Background Notes

Scope and Background

Details of the scope and background of this series were given in the March 1973 Statistical Bulletin. The Planning and Development Acts 1963 - 2000, imposes certain requirements on builders, developers and all other persons who propose to build or develop and specifies that a planning permission must be obtained from the relevant Planning Authority.

Local authority building (including housing) is exempt in the case where construction takes place in the Authorities’ own area. Therefore, works undertaken by a local authority outside its functional area come within the scope of the Acts, and need planning permission. Planning permission is also needed for development by the State, except where the consultation procedures provided for in the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1993 obtain (e.g. national security, public safety or order, the administration of justice etc). This series only provides coverage where development is subject to the requirement to obtain planning permission.

This series is also available using the interactive tables in StatBank on the CSO website. 

Regions

The Local Government Act 1991 (Regional Authorities) (Establishment) Order, 1993, which came into operation on 1 January 1994, established eight new Regions. The CSO has adopted these in place of the old Planning Regions as the basis for the regional breakdown of planning permissions data. 

Classification

Planning permissions are classified by type of development, local authority district and by regional authority.  A distinction is made between residential and non-residential building and civil engineering. 

Coverage

Only final grants of permission or approvals are covered, i.e. only works which involve construction.  The following permissions are excluded since they do not entail construction per se:

• Changes of a technical and business nature as distinct from a building or structural nature;
• Outline permission;
• Retention of an existing building;
• Changes to existing plan;
• Bye-law permission;
• Refusals - permissions subsequently granted on appeal by An Bord Pleanála are included.  

Rounding

As the figures for floor area have been rounded there may be slight discrepancies between the sum of the constituent items and the totals shown. Estimates are included where complete details of floor area size are not available.  

NUTS2 and NUTS3 regions

The regional classifications in this release are based on the NUTS (Nomenclature of Territorial Units) classification used by Eurostat.  The NUTS3 regions correspond to the eight Regional Authorities established under the Local Government Act, 1991 (Regional Authorities) (Establishment) Order, 1993, which came into operation on 1 January 1994.  The NUTS2 regions, which were proposed by Government and agreed by Eurostat in 1999, are groupings of the NUTS3 regions.  The composition of the regions is set out below.

Comparison with other national series

There are differences (due to coverage, timing, definitions and other factors) between the planning permissions statistics produced by the CSO and those of the Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government (DHPCLG), resulting in different but complementary sets of data aimed at meeting the needs of different users.

The planning permissions statistics produced by the DHPCLG focus on the overall process of the planning permissions system.  For example, it provides data for each planning authority on invalid applications received, applications for outline and full permission, decisions to grant /refuse permission, decisions issued within the statutory eight week period, decisions deferred. Percentages for decisions are provided.

By contrast, the planning permissions statistics published by the CSO provide a detailed breakdown of certain outputs of the planning process (number of  planning permissions granted with the number of units, functional description, and their floor areas).  Only final grants of permission for works which involve construction are covered. Refusals, retentions and outline permissions, for example, are excluded.  See under the heading Coverage above for a full list of exclusions.

The example of an application for a shopping centre with a car park illustrates how different approaches can result in a different total for the number of planning permissions granted. The CSO statistics include a breakdown into types of planning permission received and would therefore treat the case as an application for two permissions, one for a shopping centre and one for a car park. Where the statistics compiled do not involve such a breakdown, as is the case with the DHPCLG, the application would be treated as one for a single permission.

The purpose of the CSO Planning Permissions Statistics is to provide a short-term indicator on construction.  It aims to provide data enabling some prediction of or insight into the amount of building activity about to take place in the State. See under Historical Context for the Planning Permissions Series below for some further discussion on this aspect of the survey.

Historical Context for the Planning Permissions Series

The following was noted in the March 1973 Statistical Bulletin.

“Inaugurating this series, it was hoped primarily that it would prove in time to be a valid measure of the work about to flow into the building sector of the economy, and that it could, in fact, be related either directly or indirectly to a measure of subsequent activity in this sector. A detailed analysis of the data presently available suggests that this is not the case. No significant correlation can be found between for example the number of dwelling units planned in any period (monthly or quarterly) and any subsequent rate of completions of dwellings.  This is perhaps not too surprising when individual permissions  can relate to large numbers of individual units (up to 600 or so).  Clearly it could take up to two years or more for an “Estate” of this size to be completed. Therefore the analysis was repeated excluding the subset of permissions involving large numbers of units but the results were still not correlated significantly. This can arise from causes such as the fact that a person obtaining planning permission may not intend acting upon this permission for a considerable time, if at all. However the time scale of available planning data is still relatively short for this type of analysis, and it cannot be finally said yet that the planning permission does not correlate in any measurable way with subsequent building activity.”

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