of 56,552 council decisions, Nov 2024 to Oct 2026.
State of Planning
The state of Irish planning
Counted where the application states a number of homes (7,863 of 26,460 grants), so the true total is higher.
Commencement notices with a 2025 start date, covering 29,139 homes.
over the same 24 months, about 9 for every 100 council decisions.
Planning decisions, homes granted, project starts and appeals across Ireland, built from council planning registers and appeal records.
Trend
Month by month
Councils made 50,405 grants and 6,147 refusals from Nov 2024 to Oct 2026. The charts show homes granted and homes starting each month, the number of project starts and the monthly grant rate. Hatched bars and hollow dots mark the latest months, which are still being filled in.
Build-out
From permission to start
34%
of planning permissions granted between January and June 2025 have a recorded project start: 4,415 of 12,844.
Linking permissions to project starts is incomplete, so treat this as a floor rather than a build-out rate: a permission without a recorded start may still have started.
Appeals
Appeals
5,047 appeals were lodged with An Coimisiún Pleanála from Nov 2024 to Oct 2026.
Time to appeal26 days
Median from the council decision to the appeal being lodged. The appeal window is four weeks.
Time to decide an appeal19 weeks
Median from lodging to the board's decision (134 days).
Refusals vs grants5×
16.4% of refusals are appealed against 3.2% of grants, counting the appeals we can link to a council decision.
| Outcome | Cases | Share |
|---|---|---|
| Permission granted | 12,719 | 46.7% |
| Permission refused | 7,000 | 25.7% |
| Other outcome | 4,524 | 16.6% |
| Invalid or dismissed | 1,748 | 6.4% |
| Withdrawn | 1,223 | 4.5% |
Counties
By county
Council decisions from Nov 2024 to Oct 2026, busiest counties first. Among counties with at least 500 decisions, the grant rate runs from 79.9% in Kildare to 95.9% in Tipperary.
| County | Decisions | Grant rate | Refused |
|---|---|---|---|
| Dublin | 10,595 | 86.7% | 1,409 |
| Cork | 4,859 | 92.5% | 363 |
| Galway | 4,087 | 86.7% | 545 |
| Donegal | 3,938 | 93.2% | 269 |
| Wexford | 2,660 | 84.3% | 418 |
| Meath | 2,528 | 86.6% | 340 |
| Limerick | 2,420 | 89.4% | 256 |
| Kerry | 2,212 | 88.2% | 261 |
| Mayo | 2,138 | 92.9% | 152 |
| Tipperary | 2,098 | 95.9% | 85 |
| Kildare | 2,041 | 79.9% | 411 |
| Clare | 2,001 | 93.8% | 125 |
| Wicklow | 1,853 | 85.8% | 264 |
| Louth | 1,584 | 85.0% | 238 |
| Kilkenny | 1,526 | 92.9% | 108 |
| Waterford | 1,454 | 88.9% | 161 |
| Laois | 1,166 | 93.0% | 82 |
| Cavan | 1,128 | 94.9% | 57 |
| Westmeath | 1,020 | 87.3% | 130 |
| Offaly | 930 | 90.9% | 85 |
| Monaghan | 920 | 93.3% | 62 |
| Roscommon | 911 | 87.0% | 118 |
| Sligo | 846 | 93.0% | 59 |
| Carlow | 668 | 91.2% | 59 |
| Longford | 523 | 86.0% | 73 |
| Leitrim | 446 | 96.2% | 17 |
Method
How these figures are built
Planning decisions
Council planning registers. Each application is counted once, in the month it was decided. Conditional grants count as grants. The grant rate and county table cover the last 24 months.
Homes granted
The number of homes stated on granted applications. Many applications do not state one, so this is a floor rather than a national total.
Project starts
Commencement notices, which are lodged before building work begins, counted by their start date. When one permission appears on several notices in the same month, its homes are counted once.
Appeals
An Coimisiún Pleanála case records, counted by the month they were lodged. The comparison of refusals and grants uses the appeals we can link to a council decision, about half of all cases.
From permission to start
A grant counts as started when a commencement notice for the same permission is dated on or after the decision. Matching is incomplete, so the true share is higher.
Recent months
Records are published some time after the event, so the latest two months are still being counted and usually rise. Completions and third-party objections are not included.
Built from records collected up to 17 Oct 2026.