Call to hire more professional planners

The Irish Planning Institute has called on the Government to hire more professional planners to avoid planning delays and to ensure the State can capitalise on the fragile economic recovery.

Institute president Mary Hughes made the call yesterday following the publication of a national survey of the planning profession — the first since the height of the boom — which shows nearly one third of all professional planning posts were lost during the economic crash.

“We know that Ireland is now the fastest-growing economy in Europe and this growth is evident in the increase in planning applications nationally,” she said.