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GAZETTE
SEPTEMBER 1984
BOOK REVIEW
A Source-Book on Planning Law in Ireland by Philip
O'Sullivan, S.C. and Katherine Shepherd, B.L.
Professional Books Limited, 1984. Price £30.00.
The keynote here is usefulness and convenience, not
glamour. The book tries to assemble all the raw materials
necessary to reach an informed opinion on any question
now arising on the Planning Laws of this jurisdiction. It
can be said to succeed in this difficult but worthwhile
undertaking.
Most of the book consists of verbatim extracts from the
relevant statutes and Statutory Instruments together with
copious extracts from, or complete texts of, the Judg-
ments, reported dnd unreported, of the Superior Courts in
planning cases. The judgments fully reported or extracted
range from
Readymix
-v-
Dublin County Council
which
was in the High Court in August, 1970, to
Fitzgerald
-v-
An Bord Pleanala
when Carroll J. gave judgment as
recently as November, 1983. Many other reported cases,
Irish and English, are referred to in the footnotes and
editorial material.
The selection has been made with knowledge and
judgment. The arrangement is good, the editorial
material is brief but accurate and very much to the point.
The treatment of the enforcement of Planning Control in
Chapter 5 is particularly effective.
Being a Handbook or Source-Book, this is compiled
rather than written. You would not read it for pleasure,
not even to obtain a bird's eye view of the planning
scene — if you can imagine a bird being interested. It
takes a little while to become familiar with the arrange-
ment, and to find you way around, but having achieved
some degree of familiarity, the arrangement is clear and
logical and the printing and presentation exceptionally
good.
The treatment of the subject, relying so heavily on
recent judicial exposition, naturally reflects the matters
which have arisen in practice before the Courts.
Overwhelmingly the cases have been concerned with
planning permissions and their precise terms and effect,
appeals and development control. There is relatively little
about compensation or purchase notices, and nothing at
all on the interesting topic of the relationship of Section 4
of the City and County Management (Amendment) Act,
1955, to the planning process, other than a reference to
the treatment of this matter by Judge Keane in his book
on Local Government.
It looks as if development control in the future will rely
very much on Section 27 of the 1976 Act for enforcement.
We are unlikely to see many Enforcement Notices under
the 1963 Act which have proved difficult to operate and
have given rise to numerous technical problems and much
room for argument. The High Court can now order a
defendant to pay a monetary contribution properly due to
a Planning Authority under the terms of a planning
permission despite the fact that the contribution
condition does not in itself create a debt.
As an appendix, there is a detailed and useful
memorandum on Development Control from the
Department of the Environment which is well worth
study. The Department is to be congratulated on its
avoidance of planning jargon in this helpful and
enlightened document.
Chapter 3 is headed 'The Need for Planning
Permission', but covers in addition procedure, duration,
contents, conditions, interpretation and the revocation of
Planning Permissions.
The policy of quoting the relevant Judgments with a
minimum of comment, which is an entirely appropriate
policy in the circumstances, obliges the reader to use his
own head and to treat the book as providing the raw
materials for sound conclusions, rather than ready-made
answers. A case like
Movie News Ltd.
-v-
Galway Co.
Council
has to be handled with care and understood in the
context of its special circumstances. I was particularly
interested in
Dublin Corporation -v- McGrath
(High
Court — McMahon J. 17th November, 1978,
unreported), a useful decision on estoppel and
McKone
Estates Ltd.
-v-
Kildare Co. Council,
a decision of
O'Hanlon J. on 24th June, 1983. This is one of the few
decisions on compensation, and there is a valuable
examination of the highly significant provisions of
Sections 23 and 24 of the 1878 Public Health Act about
drainage rights.
This is a book of about six hundred pages. There is an
adequate Index and an exceptionally detailed table of
Statutes and Statutory Instruments. If you can only rise to
one book on Planning, you might very well decide to buy
this one, especially as there is a promise that it will be kept
up to date.
•
William Dundon
Incorporated Law Society of
Ireland
Overnight Accommodation
at
Blackhall Place
(Sats. & Suns, included)
Reasonable
AMPLE PARKING
Phone (01) 710711 for reservations.
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