Kerry County Council has been forced to put new procedures in place to cope with the large numbers of attempts by councillors to vote through refused planning permissions, many of them in scenic areas.
The number of Section 140 motions, which gives councillors the power to direct the county manager to grant permission to a development, has escalated in Co Kerry.
Faced with up to 20 Section 140 motions a month, councillors are now being asked to submit their planning motions two weeks before council meetings to allow officials to visit the sites and prepare detailed reports where necessary.
While councillors argue that planning in Kerry is too strict, management points to the thousands of permissions granted in the countryside each year.
Senior counsel Mr Dermot Flanagan recently warned that councillors themselves may be liable if they push through a development which plays a part in traffic accidents or is a threat to public health.
He said they should "act judiciously" and not ignore the advice of engineers and technical experts.
This week councillors granted outline permission for a three-house development and proprietary waste-treatment plants at Gneeveguilla, Killarney, on sites that were "very wet and boggy and covered with rushes".
All three had failed percolation tests carried out in accordance with EPA guidelines and would be "prejudicial to public health", the planning report signed by three of the council's most senior engineers stated.
It was the first time a Section 140 had been used for a three-house development and there was no planning history to go with the application.