A powerful new planning tsar will be a key feature of the Coalition's Planning Bill, briefing documents have revealed.
The file, which will be presented to Cabinet tomorrow, reveals that appointing a Planning Commissioner will be one of the key changes.
The Bill, which will go to Cabinet next week, aims to fundamentally shake up Ireland's outdated planning regime.
The document notes that, as part of a fundamental review, the creation of "an Environmental Planning Court is being progressed in tandem with the review".
The court will be a standalone division of the High Court which will specialise in environmental and planning issues.
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It will hear all the cases currently taken by the High Court's Commercial Planning and Strategic Infrastructure Development list and other major environmental cases relating to EU environmental law.
Amid growing rural anger over environmental activism and the power of NGOs such as Friends of the Earth, the legislation will "focus on judicial review process within planning legislation", the briefing document notes.
In a move that is likely to make for unhappiness in the Green Party, this will include "timelines for all planning consents, including An Bord Pleanála". It states that this includes cost implications for the Exchequer.
The brief also reveals that, as part of the process of change for An Bord Pleanála next year, there will be "a new recruitment process for board members, upgrading of provisions on board governors and the role of the deputy chair".
And in a shot across the bows of the now discredited An Bord Pleanála, it reveals there will be "a clear planning hierarchy [of the] National Planning Framework and Regional Spatial and Economic Strategy".
Up to this year An Bord Pleanála did not have a lawyer.
The advice to Government also proposes that: "National planning policy statements [will] replace ministerial guidance."
When it comes to the proposed reforms, which are also being spearheaded by the Fine Gael Minister of State Peter Burke, the moves to tighten up the planning appeals system will secure strong support from Fianna Fáil.
Fianna Fáil TD Barry Cowen has introduced legislation to put a 12-week limit for An Bord Pleanála to consider applications and appeals in an attempt to ensure it "doesn't unduly delay" decisions about infrastructure projects.
The Green Party has been more uneasy, with the chairman of the Housing Committee, Stephen Matthews claiming the measures would "exclude people from seeking justice" in planning. A Department of Housing spokesman said: "Engagement with the committee is a key input to the development of the proposed legislation arising out of the review and the ministers value its input to date."
