One of the State's most respected architects James Pike has hit out at local authority planning departments in a strongly worded maiden speech as president of the Royal Institute of Architects Ireland (RIAI).
Mr Pike said planning departments, particularly around Dublin, had allowed lands to be zoned for development while essential infrastructure was not in place.
"There are many examples on the Dublin fringe, for example, where water supply is still not available ten years after lands were zoned," Mr Pike said.
He said the "enormous variation" in the operation of operation of planning regulations between planning authorities was the main source of complaint to the RIAI.
"Some operate quite well and provide a generally good service to professionals and to the public, however others can only be described as dysfunctional.
"Such variations in performance and in how the planning laws and regulations are interpreted and applied means that the Irish planning system is potentially open to abuse," he warned.
Mr Pike is co-founder of O'Mahony Pike Architects in Dublin which specialises in high-density urban planning, including preparation of plans for the much vaunted Ballymun Regeneration Scheme.
He cited a number of seemingly bizarre decisions by planning authorities.
- He said one city council instructed a planning application be re-lodged because the site notice was the wrong colour and should have been yellow. By the time a yellow notice was erected and application re-submitted, the authority had changed its mind on the colour and ordered a new notice in a different colour.
- A county council ruled an application invalid because it was submitted on an out-of-date form which had been collected from the counter in the council's own offices.
Mr Pike said: "The Institute was informed of so many outrageous cases in relation to validation that they initiated a prize for the most bizarre case. In 2005, the winner reported a case where he received a planning invalidation because they did not write the word 'dimension' after each dimension noted on their drawings"
He called on the Department of the Environment to create "preferred management structures" for planing authorities and to improve their resources including the use of qualified architects to advise on planning applications because most planners do not have any training in architectural design.