A Kerry county councillor says planning enforcement in the county is often being left to banks, financial institutions and neighbours as Kerry County Council finds itself inundated with new planning applications each year.
Planners in the county have recently told councillors to give more resources to enforcement, especially in the proper finishing of housing estates. The council is dealing with, on average, about 4,000 applications each year, the bulk of them for one-off or small developments of houses in the countryside. The council also receives about 600 complaints a year from neighbours that conditions have been breached - each of which has to be inspected.
In the period between the last census, 1996 to 2002, houses completed in the county amounted to 9,060. At the same time, the population went up by just over 6,000.
"For every one person [ increase in population], we are getting close to two houses," said to Mr Willie Wixted, director of services, planning. "We have the same level of building activity as areas such as Meath and Kildare which have seen their population increase substantially."
Fears have been expressed by An Taisce and others that a proposed occupancy clause "in perpetuity" for family members,which would allow them to build on areas of amenity and conservation, may not be properly enforced.
The new policy, designed to appease councillors and end acrimony over one-off houses in the countryside in Kerry, would ensure priority would be given to "genuine family members" and planning would be granted to them "subject only to road safety and public health issues" .
Mr Michael Cahill, a Fianna Fáil councillor representing the Ring of Kerry area, said financial institutions were ensuring planning laws were not broken. Banks were not advancing mortgages in the case of houses being put up for sale within the time of occupancy (currently a two-year period) and vendors often had to wait until the period was up before they could sell them.
Banks also required independent surveys of new houses before advancing loans and this too was ensuring planning conditions were being kept. Neighbours were also keeping an eye on whether new houses were being built to planning specification.
Mr Cahill said he did not see a big improvement in enforcement of planning conditions such as the occupancy clause in the near future - the council simply did not have the resources to go out and check if houses were being fully occupied, or were ending up as holiday homes.
Mr Wixted said despite the fact every resource the council had was being put into processing planning applications, it had been successful in enforcement. It had sought one of the highest number of court injunctions on planning outside of Dublin, he added.