Tyranny

I'm pretty much an-Taisce-ed out by now but I can't let Backseat Driver Jon's recent comments pass unremarked:

And can we all at least admit that the real problem isn't the destruction of a rural idyll, but rather the difficulty of providing infrastructure and services in a country where settlement is widely dispersed. Let's remember that the builders of one-off houses also want electricity, phones, roads, transport, hospitals, schools and jobs

Err no. This is the An Taisce mantra which is dredged up to support their empty-rural-idyll promotion and bears no relation to reality. Far from extra schools being required, many rural schools face closure because of rural depopulation which is exacerbated by the difficulty of building a new home in the countryside. Most of these houses have on site services, septic tank or treatment systems and wells or group water schemes. Other services such as roads, electricity and telephone are already there. Most of these cases were granted planning permission by the relevant authority on the ground, the local council which is presumably aware of the availability of services. They are then over-ruled by An Bord Pleanala, which is in Dublin, on the recommendation of a Dublin-based organisation, An Taisce whose primary objection is to all these "vulgar" bungalows. An Taisce don't give a stuff about local services and raise groundless fears about these and, well, ground water to support this objection.

Comments

[Neil]

Full disclosure: I worked in the planning process for a number of years and the disproportionate power of An Taisce in the planning process was a source of wonder many of my colleagues and I. God knows, in Louth and elsewhere in the country, we can slag off councillors but at least these can be voted out. No such sanction exists for a Georgian ginger group that somehow transmuted into a policy-dictating quango. I really don't like An Taisce.

[Frank McGahon]

Well said!

I formed my impression of this august organisation while studying architecture in the 1980s. I met quite a few of their key people, and nothing since has disabused me of that impression.