Roscommon County Council has rejected as an "outrage" allegations by an environmental group of "a complete breakdown in planning" in the county.
County engineer and planning officer Mr Vincent Brennan dismissed a claim by Friends of the Irish Environment (FIE) that the council contravened the county development plan in granting planning permission for a number of houses in the countryside.
Friends of the Irish Environment, along with An Taisce, objected to An Bord Pleanala after Roscommon County Council granted permission to the President's husband, Mr Martin McAleese, to build a house in a lakeside location.
The appeal by An Taisce was upheld but that of FIE was rejected. Mrs McAleese's family has lodged a second application.
FIE has lodged an appeal to An Bord Pleanala against another decision by the council to grant planning permission for a house in a rural area near Carrick-on-Shannon. In its appeal it lists six other cases in a 12-mile stretch between Boyle and Carrick-on-Shannon, which, it maintains, are examples of "poorly sited dwellings in the countryside".
The group claims that "double speculative dwellings", where two separate applications are lodged by the same landowner for two adjacent houses, "are in danger of becoming a distinguishing legacy of current planning in north Roscommon".
FIE states that proper planning requires an applicant to reveal the full extent of his holdings to the local authority to ensure that Section 38 Agreements, sterilising the remainder of the holdings, may be entered into when appropriate.
Mr Brennan rejected the accusation that Roscommon County Council was not making use of Section 38 and said there was "nothing underhand" about the applications. He said that in one of the cases raised by FIE a landowner with 10 acres had applied for three houses, but the council had granted permission for two houses and applied a Section 38 to the rest of his land.
He said he regarded much of the FIE statement as "a farce" and said the county was underpopulated. "There is room for an awful lot more houses in Co Roscommon without spoiling the environment," Mr Brennan said.
He said the council would not allow multiple developments of five or six houses. If a site was in a particularly sensitive area or if there were safety considerations, this would also be taken into account but "in most rural parts of the county there isn't a huge difficulty".
Mr Brennan said he would prefer to locate two houses side by side than having them scattered. He accepted that in many cases people applying to build a house for themselves tried to sell a site to raise funds. He said in many cases adjacent houses were for family members.
FIE described some of the houses as "intrusive" and claimed they disfigured the countryside.
The environmental group has informed the council it will examine any decision on the second application by Mr McAleese and pointed out that the local authority must have regard to the decision on the previous application by An Bord Pleanala. A decision is not expected on this application until mid-September at the earliest.