An Táisce has welcomed the decision by councillors in Louth to put back on public display a development plan for Dunleer village which last year was thrown out on the casting vote of the then chairman.
In a lengthy meeting on Monday night they decided by a sizable majority to return to the plan, drawn up by consultants Murray O'Laoire, and put it back on public display. The council will then meet again to vote on whether to adopt it.
Known as Plan A, it allows for the village's population to grow from its current 1,200 to around 4,000 in the next five years.
Controversy developed last summer when an alteration to the plan was proposed by four of the five mid-Louth councillors.
It would have seen the population reach close to 6,000 and met with intense opposition from a number of groups including An Táisce.
It did not have the support of the council's senior planner Gerry Duffy who has reiterated that his support was for the original plan.
At Monday's meeting the councillors voted to rescind the adoption last summer of the altered plan.
Then they rejected a third plan which was up for debate last week and was altered by the same mid-Louth councillors minutes before the meeting started.
Finally, on the proposal of Fergus O'Dowd TD, they agreed by 16 votes to five to return to the original plan and put it back on public display. At this there was a round of applause from the public gallery.
An Táisce said: "The elected members of Louth County Council have made the right decisions in the context of Dunleer itself and its place in the county settlement strategy.
"The councillors have also clearly responded to the consistently expressed wishes of the people of Dunleer as articulated by most local organisations in the village - that its growth be plan-led and coherent in that future population expansion must be in tandem with the provision of necessary social and physical infrastructure to facilitate new residents as well as benefiting the existing community," its planning officer Mr John O'Sullivan added.