Planning permission called into question by Kildare Judge

Certain elements of the Irish planning permission system were questioned by a Naas District Court Judge.

The comments were made by Judge Desmond Zaidan during a court case held on Thursday, April 27, in which a woman was accused of dangerous driving on a date in 2022.

When the accused’s solicitor, Tim Kennelly, was explaining about a certain area on the road where the incident occurred, and criticised Kildare County Council (KCC) for the state of the road, this prompted Judge Zaidan to comment on his grievances with the planning permission system within the country.

He said: "I know we constantly hear, 'housing crisis this, housing crisis that', but we are (already) seeing the consequences with the current rate of houses being built.

Judge Desmond Zaidan made the comments during a court session held on Thursday, April 27.

Commenting further on planning permission, the judge said: "If 'Joe Soap' wanted to build a shed out his back-garden without planning permission, the county council would have him before me on a Monday morning."

He continued: "For a country full of intelligent people, we love history repeating itself."

The judge suggested that the woman bring up the issue with KCC, and joked: "I think next time there is a local election, you should run for the council... how about that for punishment?"

Following this, Judge Zaidan applied the Probation Act.