When the board has decided, one route remains — and it is not a third round on the merits: judicial review tests whether the decision was made lawfully, in the High Court, within eight weeks, under the strictest procedural regime in Irish public law. This is the summit of planning practice — and this practice conducts it from Ormond Quay, a short walk from the Four Courts, in both directions: challenging permissions, and defending them.
The Regime: Eight Weeks, Leave, Lawfulness
The special planning JR regime (sections 50 and 50A of the Planning and Development Act 2000, as amended — with the 2024 Act’s reformed framework being phased in) runs on rules with no soft edges: eight weeks from the decision to issue and serve, extendable only for good and sufficient reason — exceptional by design; the leave threshold; sufficient interest standing — applied with an eye to participation, so the parties who made submissions and engaged the appeal stand firmest, which is why the five-week observation matters years before anyone imagines a courtroom; and the courts’ statutory obligation to hear planning cases expeditiously. The court’s question is lawfulness, not wisdom: powers, procedures, screening, reasons, the plan — and the usual remedy on success is quashing with remittal: the decision unmade and sent back to be made again lawfully. The grounds that recur at the winning end are mapped honestly in the FAQs below — with EIA and AA screening errors the most fertile of the modern era, which is why they have a full page of their own — and the honest inverse is part of every first assessment here: grounds that are dressed-up merits complaints fail, and you’ll be told plainly which kind yours are. Costs sit inside their own framework: the environmental costs-protection rules exist precisely so review isn’t prohibitively expensive, their application is case-specific — and it’s assessed at the outset, never assumed.
Both Directions: Challenging — and Defending
For challengers — residents, groups, affected landowners — the work is disciplined: the file assembled fast (the decision, the inspector’s report, the screening record, everything the decision-maker had), the genuinely arguable grounds separated from the merely felt, the standing and group-structure questions settled early (who instructs, who funds, continuity from the group that objected to the group that sues), and the worth-it conversation had bluntly — prospects, exposure, and what quashing actually achieves, since remittal means the matter is decided again, not decided your way. For developers and landowners, the defence begins before the defence: as beneficiary of the permission you’re entitled to appear and defend it — and usually should, rather than leaving it to the board; the early strategy (proceeding pending challenge, delay against funding, whether the strike has found a real defect) decides much; and the deeper service belongs a year earlier — JR-proofing as a design activity: screening done demonstrably, participation handled generously, reasons written to be read by a judge. Judicial review beyond planning — state decisions, licensing, professional bodies — is carried by the firm’s wider practice at judicialreviewsolicitor.ie; the planning courtroom itself is up the quay from this office.
A Decision Worth Challenging - or a Permission Under Attack?
Either way the eight weeks are running and the file decides everything. Send the decision and your dates today; the grounds-and-worth-it assessment comes back plainly, within 48 hours.
Call 01 5827148