By Paul Murphy
An update on preparations for a new county development plan for Meath was given to councillors at their monthly meeting this week. Council official Alan Russell said that the chief executive’s report on the pre-draft submissions had been circulated to councillors on 22 nd January this year. The elected members have 10 weeks to consider that report. The total number of submissions received was 157.
The Planning and Development Act sets out a provision for elected members to issue a direction to the chief executive. The directions must be strategic in nature and setting out a broad direction and not getting into detail. The chief executive is obliged to comply with these directions where they are deemed valid. A full planning team will be available to assist the councillors in formulating any directions to ensure they are “strategic and relevant”.
The councillors now have a three-week window in order to issue directions. A number of workshops will now take place at Municipal District level where the detail of directions can be explored.
Cllr Nick Killian asking why the delay proposed legislation?
Independent Cllr Nick Killian asked why the proposed county development plan was not being processed under the new planning and development act. He said the new act had come in two years ago and he wanted to know why there was such a delay in putting statutory implementation in place. “They spent years in the Dail discussing this. Can anybody give an explanation as to why we are here in 2026 with an act that was passed in 2024, and we are still dealing with the old development act. I just can’t get it into my head why the Government delayed on this. Why has it taken two years at a time when we have a housing crisis to bring in the various pieces of legislation that are required?”
Fianna Fail Cllr Sean Drew asked if the council was now “using up limited resources” on something the council might have to do over again. It would be 2029 or 2030 before Meath would have a new development plan and if that was the case the council would have to do “a lot more variations over the coming months, an awful lot more”.
Fine Gael Cllr Gerry O’Connor said that he agreed with Cllrs Killian and Drew but added that if the county’s population was to grow by 100,000-150,000 in the next 10 years the council would have to look at the infrastructure that was going to be needed.
Cllr Joe Fox said the county needed more zoned land. The council would have to be proactive in getting more industrial and commercial land so as to boost its rates income and provide the infrastructure that was needed.
Director of Services Gareth McMahon said that Meath County Council was a very proactive local authority. He said that it was expected that there would be an amended act in force before the Oireachtas Summer recess which would give powers to the county council to process the development plan under the 2000 Act, with a view to carry out a review under the 2024 Act. He did not feel that the work they were doing at the moment would be a waste of time, rather they were able to gather a lot of useful date and information.
Sinn Fein Cllr Michael Gallagher asked if the council was engaging with Uisce Eireann in relation to infrastructure. Mr McMahon replied that they were engaging with UE and Esb networks in regard to capacity and quite a lot of date had been collected.
