An Taisce: Appeals against reckless planning saved taxpayers €750m

Appeals taken by An Taisce against reckless speculative development have likely saved the taxpayer between €500m and €750m in the last decade, the heritage body has claimed.

In its review of planning across 34 city and county councils, the body said had the developments proceeded, the loans would likely have been acquired by Nama, or would have remained with financial institutions as non-performing burdens — liabilities which taxpayers are underwriting.

The study, released on Monday, showed that in 2008, there were 42,000 hectares zoned for residential purposes — enough for 4m extra people on top of the 4.4 million population at that time. This does not take into account thousands of hectares of land zoned for mixed-use, industrial, retail, commercial, and other uses.