Data · 2025 planning timelines
Which Councils Stop the Clock Most Often?
A planning authority has 8 weeks to decide your application, unless it asks for further information, which stops the clock until you reply. 27.5% of Irish applications lodged in 2025 got such a request, but your odds depend heavily on the council: 56.5% in Monaghan against 16.7% in Dublin.
Further information requests by county, 2025
| County | Applications | FI requests | Rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Monaghan | 651 | 368 | 56.5% |
| Roscommon | 674 | 324 | 48.1% |
| Kilkenny | 976 | 429 | 44% |
| Limerick | 1,444 | 622 | 43.1% |
| Kerry | 1,410 | 607 | 43% |
| Carlow | 473 | 191 | 40.4% |
| Longford | 288 | 114 | 39.6% |
| Westmeath | 693 | 270 | 39% |
| Leitrim | 258 | 100 | 38.8% |
| Mayo | 1,488 | 570 | 38.3% |
| Cavan | 829 | 304 | 36.7% |
| Louth | 1,025 | 354 | 34.5% |
| Kildare | 1,703 | 585 | 34.4% |
| Wexford | 1,607 | 548 | 34.1% |
| Meath | 1,691 | 554 | 32.8% |
| Offaly | 832 | 262 | 31.5% |
| Tipperary | 1,615 | 509 | 31.5% |
| Wicklow | 1,412 | 442 | 31.3% |
| Waterford | 1,139 | 339 | 29.8% |
| Galway | 2,268 | 663 | 29.2% |
| Clare | 1,215 | 334 | 27.5% |
| Laois | 994 | 273 | 27.5% |
| Donegal | 2,516 | 646 | 25.7% |
| Sligo | 573 | 141 | 24.6% |
| Dublin | 8,073 | 1,346 | 16.7% |
Cork is excluded: it records no further-information dates at all in the national dataset, so a rate of 0% would be a reporting gap rather than a real figure. Counties with fewer than 100 applications are also excluded.
Why a three-fold difference?
An applicant in Monaghan is more than three times as likely to be asked for further information as one in Dublin. Part of that is the mix of applications: rural counties handle many one-off houses on unserviced sites, where percolation testing, site suitability and rural housing-need justification are all standard grounds for a request. Urban authorities process more applications on serviced, zoned land where those questions do not arise.
Part of it is house style. Some authorities will request clarification on a detail they could reasonably condition instead; others attach a condition and decide. Neither approach is wrong, but they produce very different waiting times for the applicant.
The practical consequence is timing. An application that receives a request typically runs two to four months longer than the statutory 8 weeks, because the clock stops entirely until you respond, and you get up to 6 months to do it. If you are planning around a build date, budget for that possibility in the counties near the top of this table.
Method and source
Derived from the national planning applications dataset published by the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage, covering all 31 planning authorities. Snapshot taken 2026-08-30, for applications received between 1 January and 31 December 2025. An application counts as having received a request where the register records a further information request date.
Because the figure depends on authorities populating that field, it under-reports where a council does not record the date. Cork records none at all and is excluded above for that reason. Treat the county figures as indicative of practice rather than exact.
Free to reuse with attribution to Permission.ie. The script that builds this snapshot is in the repository as scripts/build-stats-snapshot.mjs.
Frequently asked questions
What is a request for further information in planning?
A formal request from the planning authority for more detail before it decides your application, under Article 33 of the Planning and Development Regulations 2001. It stops the 8-week decision clock: the authority does not have to decide until you respond, and you have 6 months to do so. A request typically adds two to four months to the timeline.
How common are further information requests in Ireland?
27.5% of applications lodged in 2025 received one: 10,895 of 39,685. It varies widely by council, from 56.5% in Monaghan to 16.7% in Dublin.
Is a further information request bad news?
Usually not. An authority that intends to refuse outright can simply refuse. A request for further information generally means the council is willing to grant permission if you resolve specific issues, so it is more often a route to approval than a warning. It does cost you time.
How do I avoid a further information request?
Most requests are for things that could have been submitted at the start: site suitability and percolation test results, revised site layouts, boundary treatment and landscaping details, surface water drainage proposals, or justification under the Development Plan's rural housing policy. A pre-planning consultation, which is free, is the single most effective way to find out what your council will ask for.
Related
See approval rates by county, read how long planning permission takes end to end, or avoid the common causes with the pre-submission checklist.
