The European Commission accused the Government of impeding the public's right to participate in the planning process yesterday in a hearing at the European Court of Justice.
It said the €20 and €50 fees introduced by the State in 2001 for certain types of planning submissions and appeals were illegal under EU law.
Such fees also deterred people from making objections to planning applications, particularly those people living on social welfare, said the EU executive's legal agent Xavier Lewis.
Mr Lewis told the court that the introduction of fees to participate in the planning process demonstrated that "public information was not valued by the Irish Government".
The case concerns only those fees related to submissions made by the public in applications that require environmental impact assessments.However, if the Government loses the case it will put further pressure on politicians to scrap the controversial fees on all planning objections.
Minister for the Environment Dick Roche announced recently he was reviewing the fees on submitting objections to planning applications which now stand at €20 for a submission and €50 for an appeal.
Environmentalists claim that the fees are undemocratic and were only introduced to discourage submissions to local authorities.
Brian Murray SC, representing the Government, said the fees were introduced by the State to provide a modest contribution to the cost of processing planning submissions and not to deter submissions.
He said the fees charged by local authorities for submissions made by the public were reasonable in principle and the amount charged.
He said fees were also charged by State bodies for a range of other types of administrative procedures, including freedom of information requests and court stamping fees.
Mr Murray also argued that Ireland was completely within its legal rights to introduce fees for planning submissions made in cases involving environmental impact assessments.
Mr Lewis disputed the State's interpretation of an EU directive passed in June 1985.
He said this directive never intended to give the right to member states to introduce fees in this area.
The Department of the Environment released figures yesterday which showed that just 264 planning applications in 2004 required an environmental impact assessment.