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GAZETTE
DECEMBER 1978
SOCIETY PUBLISHES GUIDE TO THE
PLANNING ACTS
The Society was pleased to welcome Mr. Sylvester
Barrett, Minister for the Environment, to the launching of
the Society's new publication "A Guide to the Planning
Acts" by Kevin I. Nowlan recently. In his short speech
Mr. Barrett said: "It gives me great pleasure therefore to
be associated with the launching of Mr. Nowlan's Guide
to the Planning Acts. There is no doubt that this kind of
Guide is badly needed. The 1963 Act is a complex piece
of legislation and it has gone through the test of time
extraordinarily well".
"The amending Act of 1976 brought the usual
problems for a Practitioner. The original purpose of the
Bill was to set up the Planning Board and this was
generally agreed by all sides in the Oireachtas. However
the opportunity was taken to secure various
improvements in the 1963 Act and many amendments
were introduced during the passage of the Bill. The result
is that the Practitioner seeking to establish the Law on a
particular point may have to hunt backwards and
forwards between the two enactments. He will be happy
to find that the Guide relieves him of the tedium and
uncertainty of chasing references. The manner in which
Mr. Nowlan has dealt with this matter is. outlined in his
preface and despite the problems caused by having both
general and particular amendments I think people will
agree that he has provided a practical and helpful
solution."
"I have no doubt that he has produced a work which
will be of very great convenience to Professionals and
Laymen alike and a very necessaty facility for those who
are concerned with the study or administration of the
Planning Acts."
In his remarks at the launching Mr. John Buckley the
Chairman of the Society's Text Book Publication Sub-
Committee referred to the steady stream of publications
which had either been published by the Society itself or
with which the Society had been concerned as sponsors or
advisers. He commented that the Society had been
disappointed with the apparent reluctance of the Staffs of
the Law Faculties in the Irish Universities to undertake
authorship of text books. Not one application had been
received by the Society in response to its last
advertisement offering to sponsor such publication.
The Book which incorporates the text of the Statutes
with case notations and an index comprises 215 pages
and is available from the Law Society at £6 per copy.
Book Reviews
A GUIDE TO THE PLANNING ACTS
by K. I.
Nowlan. Dublin: The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland,
1978. xiii, 215p. £6.00, plus 40p postage.
In musical terms the Local Government (Planning and
Development) Act, 1963, might be described as an
instrument which is capable of contributing to a beautiful
performance but which is difficult to play. The amending
Act of 1976 was designed to improve the performance
but in some ways it makes the playing even more difficult.
Mr. Kevin Nowlan in writing his Guide to the Planning
Acts has attempted to ease this difficulty so that for
planners and lawyers, a good performance can be
achieved even by players of average ability: to a
considerable extent he has achieved his goal. The
publication of the 1963 Act with all the 1976 Act
amendments "written in" will be of assistance particularly
to students and to members of the physical planning
profession. For the practising lawyer however, the text of
the 1963 Act in its unamended form will continue to have
significance for many years to come and use of the text as
amended can lead to error. It would have greatly
facilitated the use of this book if the amendments to the
1963 Act had been printed so as to be readily identifiable,
either by italicisation or by underlining.
Mr. Nowlan has kept himself remarkably well in touch
with the most recent decisions of the Courts relating to
the Planning legislation and his references to these cases
are a valuable part of his text.
It is a sad commentary that of the twenty-four Irish
legal decisions listed on page xi of this book eleven are
"unreported". A number of these unreported cases touch
on matters of considerable significance and it is a
constant frustration for students, legal practitioners and
planners that the texts of these judgments are not more
readily available.
In writing this Guide to the Planning Acts Mr. Nowlan
has achieved more than a "foraging expedition". He has
succeeded in narrowing the gap between the two separate
worlds referred to in the quotation in his preface — the
world of ministerial circulars and judicial decisions and
the world of practice at the level of the local planning
authority.
Michael Murphy
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