Call for council to drop school planning fees

THE Department of Education is being forced to pay planning fees when it applies for permission for new schools in Co Cork.

Fine Gael’s David Stanton has urged Cork County Council to amend its policy, which makes it one of very few planning authorities applying the charges. Planning laws allow for applications where a building or development is for educational community use, to be exempt from charges.

A Department of Education official revealed at a hearing of the Oireachtas Education Committee that most councils accept the argument that, where the department applies for a school building on the understanding it is on behalf of the board of a school to be set up in the future, no planning fees should be applied.