December 9, 2025 • 25 mins
Gather round the fire for a very different kind of Christmas story. In this special episode, we hand the microphone over to a weary Santa Claus to narrate the true, exhausted saga of the "Ironborn" site in Dublin.
It isn't a story about toys or elves. It's a farce about:
- Three Judicial Reviews.
- Five planning applications in nine years.
- Millions of Euro spent.
- And absolutely zero homes built.
Join St. Nick as he walks you through exactly why the Irish planning system is on the Naughty List this year.
(Note: This episode features an AI-generated voice performance. If you enjoyed this, please consider donating to Focus Ireland this Christmas.)
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_00 (00:19):
Oh, oh.
Well, hold on a moment.
Pull up a chair.
There are no memes today and notoys in this sack.
Instead, we are focusing solelyon the facts.
My old friend Rick asked me torecord this as he is currently
far, far away from his podcaststudio.
(00:40):
So let's begin.
In August 2019, Twin Light,along with a co-investor, bought
a parcel of land romanticallyknown as Sector 3, Aikens
Village.
Step aside, Dublin 18.
Six years later, in December2025, this site remains vacant
(01:00):
and undeveloped.
The economic cost of thisnon-development, to the people
who would live there, totwinlight as developers, and to
the state in terms of taxes, issignificant.
Developers like them areregularly accused of land
hoarding, and from the outside,it might look like that is what
(01:21):
is going on with this site.
But the reality is much morecomplex.
This particular site is anexample which shows how
difficult it is to navigate theplanning system.
This site is not hugelycontroversial.
There are no Brent geese, noreindeer.
But it has still proven verydifficult to build on.
(01:45):
This isn't a rage bait post.
Rick wants me to emphasize thathe bears no ill will towards the
cast of characters involved inthis story.
No one has broken the law.
No one is on the naughty list,except maybe the entire
government.
Everyone has played their part.
It's just that this isn't adrama.
(02:07):
It's a farce.
Chapter Zero.
What are you talking about?
The site is 2.92 hectares.
It sits in the middle of ahousing development called
Aikens Village, itself besidethe small village of Stepperside
in South Dublin.
Aikens Village was mostlydeveloped during the boom.
(02:31):
But the bit we are talking aboutwas actually built after the
crash.
So it included fairly modern lowdensity housing.
Remember when there was solittle demand for housing that
you could build low densitybeside a Lewis stop?
Way back in the 2000s?
For one, I prefer high density,elevators rather than chimneys,
(02:53):
though with Ozempic, thechimneys aren't as much of a
problem anymore.
I digress.
The site is less than onethousand meters away from the
Glencairn Lewis Stop.
Remember that children becauseit is an important detail for
later.
It is close to the M fifty andsits in the foothills of the
Dublin Mountains.
(03:13):
It's a nice area, suburban,trees, all that kind of thing.
Chapter one.
It already had fucking planningpermission.
When Twin Light bought the landit had planning permission
already granted for 243apartments and duplexes in
(03:34):
eleven blocks, along with twounderground car parks with 342
parking spaces.
There was also a crash.
This planning permission wassought by the previous owner and
was granted in 2016 by DunlearyRathdown County Council.
But this permission wasn'treally suitable for what
(03:56):
TwinLight wanted to do.
It was very inefficient in itsdesign, a lot of common floor
area relative to actualresidential floor area, and
wasn't maximizing the area ofthe site, so.
They went back in with a newapplication in November 2019 for
444 apartments.
(04:17):
This eliminated surface carparking and increased the
heights of some of the blocks onthe southern end of the site.
The site slopes to the south.
This application was lodgedunder the old so-called fast
track planning rules known asthe Strategic Housing
Development or SHD guidelines.
(04:38):
And Board Planala, ABP as it wasknown then, was minded to grant
planning permission for this newdesign.
But right before the decisionwas issued, Irish Water sent a
letter to ABP, which mistakenlysuggested there was no capacity
to accommodate the water andwastewater needs of the
development.
(04:58):
As a result, ABP had no choicebut to refuse permission.
Irish Water later confirmedthere was in fact capacity.
This application, which wasrefused in April 2020, is called
Ironborn SHD 1.
The application fee that waspaid to ABP was around 60,000
(05:19):
euro.
The design team fees were275,000 euro.
Chapter 2.
Let's try again.
TwinLite retooled the design andteam and submitted a second
application, which we will callIronborn SHD II in March 2021.
(05:41):
Another fee of 61,557 euro andtwenty-eight cents was paid to
ABP.
This application was made underthe build to rent rules and was
for one apartment more than theprevious scheme, 445 in total,
along with the crash, etc.
(06:03):
The build to rent rules requiredthat they legally guarantee the
apartments could only be usedfor rent for a period of 15
years from their completion.
This time, Irish Water confirmedthe development could go ahead,
as long as TwinLight built aholding tank for them.
To cater for, and I'm notjoking, excess drainage volume
(06:26):
coming from illegal drainageconnections from nearby lands,
and to cater for future demandfrom developments that haven't
been applied for or built yet.
That might be a surprise to someof you.
But Irish Water, who in fairnessare starved of funding since
they can't charge theircustomers for the product they
produce, routinely requiredevelopers to build future
(06:50):
infrastructure for them inexchange for getting a
connection.
So, TwinLight agreed to thetank, and DLR County Council
graciously agreed to host thistank, which is underground, in a
location where Irish Waterwanted it.
Extra presence for DLR thatyear.
The application was thus grantedby ABP in July 2021.
(07:14):
Hooray! Twin Light had theequity and debt lined up to
construct the building.
Even the construction contracthad been signed.
They were ready to go.
Chapter three.
Judicial Review Number One.
On September 6, 2021, a group ofnearby residents sought and were
(07:35):
granted leave to have the HighCourt review the planning
decision that ABP made.
Judicial reviews are not wellunderstood by the general
public, which is no surprisesince the general public almost
never has to interact with one.
So, a quick primer.
Judicial reviews of planningdecisions aren't meant to
(07:56):
question the merits of theplanning decision.
Instead, they are meant toquestion the legality of the
decision.
So the court has no businessfiguring out whether or not a
decision was a good one.
They are not meant to opine onthe height of the building or
its design.
Just whether or not the partymaking the decision, the state,
(08:17):
via ABP, did so lawfully.
Obviously, interpreting the lawis a matter for the courts, and
the courts are run by judges whoare humans and have differing
opinions on the law.
Twinlight had now owned the sitefor two years, and still hadn't
gotten started with buildinganything.
The judicial review waseventually heard by the High
(08:40):
Court in September 2023, twoyears after the planning
permission was granted, and thecourt quashed the permission on
a couple of different grounds.
It is complicated, so I have tosummarize here.
First, the report on daylightand sunlight that was submitted
(09:01):
with the application didn'tspecifically outline what
mitigation was being planned forapartments that didn't meet the
threshold requirements.
Almost all apartments have tomeet the threshold.
In this case it was above ninetypercent.
Not every apartment has to reachthis threshold, however.
It would be next to impossibleto achieve this unless they were
(09:25):
all glass, or all face the southor west, or didn't have any
balconies.
More on that later.
The apartments that don't meetthe threshold have to have
mitigation.
You and I know what mitigationis.
Lights.
Turns out, if the report doesn'tspecifically say that there will
(09:45):
be lights in the area of theapartment that doesn't get
enough daylight, then theplanning authority is precluded
from assuming there will belights.
Therefore, the decision to grantplanning permission is unlawful,
because they made an assumptioninstead of relying on the
applicant to specify that theywere indeed going to put lights
(10:06):
inside.
Second, the court also said thatthere was no substantiation of
there being sufficient publictransport capacity to service
the development once it wasbuilt.
This is a chicken and eggsituation.
So permit me a short thoughtexperiment to explain this
further.
Say you wanted to build onethousand apartments in the
(10:28):
middle of nowhere, and forwhatever reason there happened
to be a train line with astation right in the middle of
this middle of nowhere site.
The government wants you tobuild the apartments because
they need apartments and figurepeople can commute using the
train line.
However, until the apartmentsare actually built, the train
(10:50):
company isn't going to run anytrains to the station, because
there will be no one to usethem.
In this case, how do yousubstantiate the public
transport capacity in yourplanning application?
As it stands, the publictransport capacity is zero,
because there are no trainsrunning.
The planning applicationincluded a traffic and transport
(11:13):
assessment prepared by ACOM, whoare one of the biggest
engineering firms in the world.
The assessment is one hundredand thirty pages long.
In addition to doing detailedtrip analysis, it also
repeatedly points out that thetram stop was 900 meters away.
And that Transport for Irelandhad announced the trams were
(11:34):
being extended from 40 meters to55 meters in length to increase
capacity.
These trams were due intooperation in 2021.
And surprisingly, they were inoperation in 2021.
The court did not find that theanalysis was sufficient in terms
of proving there was capacity onpublic transport, meaning ABP
(11:58):
could not have lawfullyconcluded there was sufficient
public transport capacity.
This has implications for anyplanned development that is not
already served by transport overand above the needs of the
existing population, which isobviously not common.
The last reason the judge gavewas that the planning authority,
(12:20):
ABP, didn't correctly articulatethe reasons why it believed the
public open space that wasdesigned into the development
didn't contravene the DLRdevelopment plan.
To be clear, the open space plandesign did contravene the
development plan, as it isallowed to under national
planning guidelines.
(12:41):
And reasons were given for it inthe material contravention
statement.
Again, the court is not sayingthose reasons are invalid.
It is saying that ABP didn'tstate its rationale for agreeing
with the reasons.
The court quashed thepermission, or so it seemed.
So, back to the drawing board.
(13:04):
Chapter 4.
But wait, wasn't there alreadyplanning permission?
Yes.
Before all of this saga began,there was the not great
permission that was granted in2016.
When it became clear thatgetting planning was going to be
a real headache on this site,Twin Light figured maybe they
(13:26):
would just go build the existingpermission.
Sure it was flawed andinefficient, but it was better
than what they had in thatmoment.
Which was nothing.
Not even a lump of coal in theirstocking.
Ho.
Oh, no.
There was a catch, though.
The permission was granted in2016.
(13:47):
It was already three years oldwhen they bought the land, and
thus only had two years left torun before it expired.
In 2021 they sought to extendthe permission, something that
was normally allowed.
But no.
In Ireland, apparently buildersonly ever extended planning
(14:07):
permissions because they werehoarding land, so the ability to
do this was removed for all butexceptional reasons.
The Minister for Housing isgoing on the naughty list for
that.
They applied to DLR CountyCouncil for an extension, and it
was refused.
What were their reasons?
(14:27):
They didn't believe Twin Lightwere going to build the
development they were seekingthe extension on.
Mr Big, bad builder, must behoarding the land.
Twin Light didn't believe thatwas a valid reason.
So thinking they were entitledto the same technical reasoning
the courts take with everyoneelse, they sought a judicial
(14:48):
review of DLR's decision torefuse the extension.
This was also heard in 2023.
And guess what?
They lost.
The judge said it was entirelyreasonable for DLR County
Council to take the view thatthe development wouldn't be
completed during the extensionthat was sought.
The judgment was silent on justhow TwinLight go about proving
(15:12):
ahead of time that they aregoing to build it.
So, in this sorry tale, we arenow back to square minus one,
with no valid planningpermission at all.
Chapter 5.
Stepping back in time a littleto 2022.
(15:35):
A mere three years after TwinLight bought the land, they had
to come up with a plan E.
At this stage the first judicialreview hadn't even been heard
yet, but the omens didn't lookgood for it.
Thank you, Atlantic Diamond.
You can Google it, and no, it'snot really about diamonds.
(15:55):
So back into the design team,and another several hundred
thousand euro later.
There was yet anotherapplication, which we shall call
Ironborn SHD 3.
Yet another transfer to ABP forsixty odd thousand Euro.
This time the design featuredfour hundred twenty-two units,
(16:16):
with some balconies removed tocompletely solve the daylight
issue, and yes, they explicitlystated they would also install
lights.
This application was lodged inSeptember 2022 and was granted
in October 2023.
The same group of residentsagain sought a judicial review
(16:38):
of this decision.
And that case was finally heardthis year, with the judgment
coming out last week.
Once again, the permission wasquashed.
This time, because they hadremoved the balconies from the
development to improve daylight,which you will recall, was a
problem from the last decision.
(16:58):
Removing the balconies wascontrary to the DLR County
Council development plan, whichrequires a balcony on every
apartment.
The judge said that there was nospecial reason for the balconies
to be removed, and so theapplication was contrary to the
development plan and wastherefore quashed.
It should be noted that thegovernment recently published
(17:20):
national guidelines allowing theremoval of some balconies.
These guidelines were alsochallenged by way of judicial
review.
This Christmas there really is ajudicial review for everyone.
Chapter six Remittal If youlisten this far, thank you, and
(17:41):
you'll be glad to know this iswhere the story finally gets
interesting.
In the first judicial review,when the court quashed the
decision for Ironborn SHD II,the assumption was that our
protagonists were back to thestart.
It subsequently emerged that thejudge had decided that ABP
(18:02):
should have to consider the caseafresh and make a new decision.
So he remitted the case back toABP for review.
ABP told Twinlight a decisionwas due in January 2025.
At the time of recording this,that decision had not issued.
(18:22):
Admittedly, the Postal Serviceto the North Pole is very busy
at the moment, so it's possibleI have missed it.
It appears clear from thejudgment on Ironborn SHD 3 that
a similar result will arise,with the judge remitting the
application back to ABP to makea fresh decision.
Hopefully this time a lawfulone.
(18:43):
But children, all this leads toa bit of a conundrum.
As ABP have not yet made adecision on the remitted
application, Ironborn SHD II, itis now likely that they will be
considering both applications atthe same time.
And if that wasn't enough,there's more.
(19:04):
Chapter 7.
May the Fourth Be With You.
In the intervening several yearssince this story began, a lot of
things changed.
The government became hostile toforeign direct investment in
housing and brought in a myriadof new and largely stupid rules
designed to make the housingmarket less interesting to
(19:26):
foreign investors.
This all happened at the sametime that Russia unlawfully
invaded Ukraine, which led to about of general inflation but
particularly in construction.
The inflation acceleratedalready rising interest rates.
These things all conspired tomake the development twinlight
(19:46):
were planning considerably lessattractive to outside investors.
This project would have consumedclose to 165 million euro in
capital, and nobody writes thatkind of a check unless the risk
reward calculus.
Is good.
Not even S Clause Capital.
By early 2024, still in limbo,waiting for the outcome of the
(20:08):
second judicial review, TwinLights started down the road of
yet another planningapplication.
This time they pursued alow-rise, high-density scheme
under the new large-scaleresidential planning process.
The successor to the SHD.
This design for 209 own doorunits was lodged in August 2025
(20:31):
and a decision is due shortly.
It is the fifth planningapplication on the site in nine
years.
Coda.
A couple of things.
Rick wants me to again point outthat he doesn't blame any of the
various characters involved inthis story.
Twin Light bought the land, theytook the risk.
(20:54):
The residents exercised therights given to them under law.
The courts carried out theirrole, and the judges decided
based on what they believe to becorrect, and ultimately he lost
out.
But as I say to Mrs.
Claws when she is chiding me forthe mess in the kitchen, that is
the way the cookie crumbles.
Nobody can say that any of thosepeople involved are the reason
(21:17):
this project has failed tohappen.
Nothing underhanded happened.
Nobody got special treatment.
In that sense.
The system worked.
In another sense, though, thesystem failed miserably.
The Irish state would havebenefited financially from the
project.
The development contributionsalone on this project would have
(21:40):
been more than seven millioneuros paid directly to DLR
County Council in 2023 terms,probably closer to eight million
in current value.
That is a lot of toys for thechildren.
Central government would havecollected close to thirty
million in VAT paid on thecompleted project, and four
(22:02):
hundred and twenty-twohouseholds would have had
somewhere to live.
And that is a lot of customersfor Santa and a lot of carrots
for Rudolph.
Some of you might point out thatthe expensive apartments Twin
Light were planning to buildweren't exactly going to solve
homelessness, and you're right.
Except you're also wrong.
(22:24):
Because those four hundredtwenty two households now live
somewhere else, and thatdisplaces four hundred
twenty-two other households tosomewhere else, and on and on
down the ladder.
Housing is expensive because itis scarce.
Expensive housing doescontribute significantly to
homelessness.
There is a problem with theplanning system.
(22:46):
It does need to be fixed.
You can blame developers forsmall errors in planning
applications that are oftentwelve thousand pages long.
You can blame ABP for notexplicitly justifying their
reasoning for every singledecision in enough words to
satisfy lawyers.
And you can even take issue withthe involvement of private
(23:08):
capital in the supply of housingaltogether, and believe it
shouldn't happen.
That's all fine.
But in passing that blame youare suggesting nothing should
change.
And if you are leaving thissystem the way it currently is,
nothing is also going to changein terms of the supply of
housing or in terms of the costof it.
(23:29):
Years will go by, land will lievacant, and meanwhile, people
will be living in damp B andB's, B emigrating, or be trying
to get the ride in theirchildhood bedroom if they are
lucky enough to have one, whiletheir parents try to sleep in an
adjacent room.
Certainly not what I want tohave to deal with when
(23:51):
delivering presents.
The consequences of this areserious, and they are long term.
But by all means, go ahead andlay the blame at the door of the
developers.
That strategy has been workingreally well for the last decade.
The infrastructure plan is agood first step, so in a rare
show of support, I tip my Santahat to the current government.
(24:15):
I'll be making a list to see whofollows through, though, and
I'll be checking it twice.
Happy Christmas to all and toall.
A good night.
P.S.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please consider subscribing.
It's completely free, and thereare a large number of episodes
(24:35):
that break down some of thereasons there is a housing
shortage in Ireland.
But even if you don't want toever listen again, please
consider donating to FocusIreland this Christmas.
You can do so at their website,focusireland.ie.
The build is normally hosted byRick Larkin.
Special guest host on thisepisode is Santa Claus.
(24:59):
The views expressed in this andprevious podcasts are personal
to the individual guests and donot necessarily represent the
views of their employers.
Copyright 2025, Rick Larkin.
Oh, oh.
Well, hold on a moment.
Pull up a chair.
There are no memes today and notoys in this sack.
Instead, we are focusing solelyon the facts.
My old friend Rick asked me torecord this as he is currently
far, far away from his podcaststudio.
(00:40):
So let's begin.
In August 2019, Twin Light,along with a co-investor, bought
a parcel of land romanticallyknown as Sector 3, Aikens
Village.
Step aside, Dublin 18.
Six years later, in December2025, this site remains vacant
(01:00):
and undeveloped.
The economic cost of thisnon-development, to the people
who would live there, totwinlight as developers, and to
the state in terms of taxes, issignificant.
Developers like them areregularly accused of land
hoarding, and from the outside,it might look like that is what
(01:21):
is going on with this site.
But the reality is much morecomplex.
This particular site is anexample which shows how
difficult it is to navigate theplanning system.
This site is not hugelycontroversial.
There are no Brent geese, noreindeer.
But it has still proven verydifficult to build on.
(01:45):
This isn't a rage bait post.
Rick wants me to emphasize thathe bears no ill will towards the
cast of characters involved inthis story.
No one has broken the law.
No one is on the naughty list,except maybe the entire
government.
Everyone has played their part.
It's just that this isn't adrama.
(02:07):
It's a farce.
Chapter Zero.
What are you talking about?
The site is 2.92 hectares.
It sits in the middle of ahousing development called
Aikens Village, itself besidethe small village of Stepperside
in South Dublin.
Aikens Village was mostlydeveloped during the boom.
(02:31):
But the bit we are talking aboutwas actually built after the
crash.
So it included fairly modern lowdensity housing.
Remember when there was solittle demand for housing that
you could build low densitybeside a Lewis stop?
Way back in the 2000s?
For one, I prefer high density,elevators rather than chimneys,
(02:53):
though with Ozempic, thechimneys aren't as much of a
problem anymore.
I digress.
The site is less than onethousand meters away from the
Glencairn Lewis Stop.
Remember that children becauseit is an important detail for
later.
It is close to the M fifty andsits in the foothills of the
Dublin Mountains.
(03:13):
It's a nice area, suburban,trees, all that kind of thing.
Chapter one.
It already had fucking planningpermission.
When Twin Light bought the landit had planning permission
already granted for 243apartments and duplexes in
(03:34):
eleven blocks, along with twounderground car parks with 342
parking spaces.
There was also a crash.
This planning permission wassought by the previous owner and
was granted in 2016 by DunlearyRathdown County Council.
But this permission wasn'treally suitable for what
(03:56):
TwinLight wanted to do.
It was very inefficient in itsdesign, a lot of common floor
area relative to actualresidential floor area, and
wasn't maximizing the area ofthe site, so.
They went back in with a newapplication in November 2019 for
444 apartments.
(04:17):
This eliminated surface carparking and increased the
heights of some of the blocks onthe southern end of the site.
The site slopes to the south.
This application was lodgedunder the old so-called fast
track planning rules known asthe Strategic Housing
Development or SHD guidelines.
(04:38):
And Board Planala, ABP as it wasknown then, was minded to grant
planning permission for this newdesign.
But right before the decisionwas issued, Irish Water sent a
letter to ABP, which mistakenlysuggested there was no capacity
to accommodate the water andwastewater needs of the
development.
(04:58):
As a result, ABP had no choicebut to refuse permission.
Irish Water later confirmedthere was in fact capacity.
This application, which wasrefused in April 2020, is called
Ironborn SHD 1.
The application fee that waspaid to ABP was around 60,000
(05:19):
euro.
The design team fees were275,000 euro.
Chapter 2.
Let's try again.
TwinLite retooled the design andteam and submitted a second
application, which we will callIronborn SHD II in March 2021.
(05:41):
Another fee of 61,557 euro andtwenty-eight cents was paid to
ABP.
This application was made underthe build to rent rules and was
for one apartment more than theprevious scheme, 445 in total,
along with the crash, etc.
(06:03):
The build to rent rules requiredthat they legally guarantee the
apartments could only be usedfor rent for a period of 15
years from their completion.
This time, Irish Water confirmedthe development could go ahead,
as long as TwinLight built aholding tank for them.
To cater for, and I'm notjoking, excess drainage volume
(06:26):
coming from illegal drainageconnections from nearby lands,
and to cater for future demandfrom developments that haven't
been applied for or built yet.
That might be a surprise to someof you.
But Irish Water, who in fairnessare starved of funding since
they can't charge theircustomers for the product they
produce, routinely requiredevelopers to build future
(06:50):
infrastructure for them inexchange for getting a
connection.
So, TwinLight agreed to thetank, and DLR County Council
graciously agreed to host thistank, which is underground, in a
location where Irish Waterwanted it.
Extra presence for DLR thatyear.
The application was thus grantedby ABP in July 2021.
(07:14):
Hooray! Twin Light had theequity and debt lined up to
construct the building.
Even the construction contracthad been signed.
They were ready to go.
Chapter three.
Judicial Review Number One.
On September 6, 2021, a group ofnearby residents sought and were
(07:35):
granted leave to have the HighCourt review the planning
decision that ABP made.
Judicial reviews are not wellunderstood by the general
public, which is no surprisesince the general public almost
never has to interact with one.
So, a quick primer.
Judicial reviews of planningdecisions aren't meant to
(07:56):
question the merits of theplanning decision.
Instead, they are meant toquestion the legality of the
decision.
So the court has no businessfiguring out whether or not a
decision was a good one.
They are not meant to opine onthe height of the building or
its design.
Just whether or not the partymaking the decision, the state,
(08:17):
via ABP, did so lawfully.
Obviously, interpreting the lawis a matter for the courts, and
the courts are run by judges whoare humans and have differing
opinions on the law.
Twinlight had now owned the sitefor two years, and still hadn't
gotten started with buildinganything.
The judicial review waseventually heard by the High
(08:40):
Court in September 2023, twoyears after the planning
permission was granted, and thecourt quashed the permission on
a couple of different grounds.
It is complicated, so I have tosummarize here.
First, the report on daylightand sunlight that was submitted
(09:01):
with the application didn'tspecifically outline what
mitigation was being planned forapartments that didn't meet the
threshold requirements.
Almost all apartments have tomeet the threshold.
In this case it was above ninetypercent.
Not every apartment has to reachthis threshold, however.
It would be next to impossibleto achieve this unless they were
(09:25):
all glass, or all face the southor west, or didn't have any
balconies.
More on that later.
The apartments that don't meetthe threshold have to have
mitigation.
You and I know what mitigationis.
Lights.
Turns out, if the report doesn'tspecifically say that there will
(09:45):
be lights in the area of theapartment that doesn't get
enough daylight, then theplanning authority is precluded
from assuming there will belights.
Therefore, the decision to grantplanning permission is unlawful,
because they made an assumptioninstead of relying on the
applicant to specify that theywere indeed going to put lights
(10:06):
inside.
Second, the court also said thatthere was no substantiation of
there being sufficient publictransport capacity to service
the development once it wasbuilt.
This is a chicken and eggsituation.
So permit me a short thoughtexperiment to explain this
further.
Say you wanted to build onethousand apartments in the
(10:28):
middle of nowhere, and forwhatever reason there happened
to be a train line with astation right in the middle of
this middle of nowhere site.
The government wants you tobuild the apartments because
they need apartments and figurepeople can commute using the
train line.
However, until the apartmentsare actually built, the train
(10:50):
company isn't going to run anytrains to the station, because
there will be no one to usethem.
In this case, how do yousubstantiate the public
transport capacity in yourplanning application?
As it stands, the publictransport capacity is zero,
because there are no trainsrunning.
The planning applicationincluded a traffic and transport
(11:13):
assessment prepared by ACOM, whoare one of the biggest
engineering firms in the world.
The assessment is one hundredand thirty pages long.
In addition to doing detailedtrip analysis, it also
repeatedly points out that thetram stop was 900 meters away.
And that Transport for Irelandhad announced the trams were
(11:34):
being extended from 40 meters to55 meters in length to increase
capacity.
These trams were due intooperation in 2021.
And surprisingly, they were inoperation in 2021.
The court did not find that theanalysis was sufficient in terms
of proving there was capacity onpublic transport, meaning ABP
(11:58):
could not have lawfullyconcluded there was sufficient
public transport capacity.
This has implications for anyplanned development that is not
already served by transport overand above the needs of the
existing population, which isobviously not common.
The last reason the judge gavewas that the planning authority,
(12:20):
ABP, didn't correctly articulatethe reasons why it believed the
public open space that wasdesigned into the development
didn't contravene the DLRdevelopment plan.
To be clear, the open space plandesign did contravene the
development plan, as it isallowed to under national
planning guidelines.
(12:41):
And reasons were given for it inthe material contravention
statement.
Again, the court is not sayingthose reasons are invalid.
It is saying that ABP didn'tstate its rationale for agreeing
with the reasons.
The court quashed thepermission, or so it seemed.
So, back to the drawing board.
(13:04):
Chapter 4.
But wait, wasn't there alreadyplanning permission?
Yes.
Before all of this saga began,there was the not great
permission that was granted in2016.
When it became clear thatgetting planning was going to be
a real headache on this site,Twin Light figured maybe they
(13:26):
would just go build the existingpermission.
Sure it was flawed andinefficient, but it was better
than what they had in thatmoment.
Which was nothing.
Not even a lump of coal in theirstocking.
Ho.
Oh, no.
There was a catch, though.
The permission was granted in2016.
(13:47):
It was already three years oldwhen they bought the land, and
thus only had two years left torun before it expired.
In 2021 they sought to extendthe permission, something that
was normally allowed.
But no.
In Ireland, apparently buildersonly ever extended planning
(14:07):
permissions because they werehoarding land, so the ability to
do this was removed for all butexceptional reasons.
The Minister for Housing isgoing on the naughty list for
that.
They applied to DLR CountyCouncil for an extension, and it
was refused.
What were their reasons?
(14:27):
They didn't believe Twin Lightwere going to build the
development they were seekingthe extension on.
Mr Big, bad builder, must behoarding the land.
Twin Light didn't believe thatwas a valid reason.
So thinking they were entitledto the same technical reasoning
the courts take with everyoneelse, they sought a judicial
(14:48):
review of DLR's decision torefuse the extension.
This was also heard in 2023.
And guess what?
They lost.
The judge said it was entirelyreasonable for DLR County
Council to take the view thatthe development wouldn't be
completed during the extensionthat was sought.
The judgment was silent on justhow TwinLight go about proving
(15:12):
ahead of time that they aregoing to build it.
So, in this sorry tale, we arenow back to square minus one,
with no valid planningpermission at all.
Chapter 5.
Stepping back in time a littleto 2022.
(15:35):
A mere three years after TwinLight bought the land, they had
to come up with a plan E.
At this stage the first judicialreview hadn't even been heard
yet, but the omens didn't lookgood for it.
Thank you, Atlantic Diamond.
You can Google it, and no, it'snot really about diamonds.
(15:55):
So back into the design team,and another several hundred
thousand euro later.
There was yet anotherapplication, which we shall call
Ironborn SHD 3.
Yet another transfer to ABP forsixty odd thousand Euro.
This time the design featuredfour hundred twenty-two units,
(16:16):
with some balconies removed tocompletely solve the daylight
issue, and yes, they explicitlystated they would also install
lights.
This application was lodged inSeptember 2022 and was granted
in October 2023.
The same group of residentsagain sought a judicial review
(16:38):
of this decision.
And that case was finally heardthis year, with the judgment
coming out last week.
Once again, the permission wasquashed.
This time, because they hadremoved the balconies from the
development to improve daylight,which you will recall, was a
problem from the last decision.
(16:58):
Removing the balconies wascontrary to the DLR County
Council development plan, whichrequires a balcony on every
apartment.
The judge said that there was nospecial reason for the balconies
to be removed, and so theapplication was contrary to the
development plan and wastherefore quashed.
It should be noted that thegovernment recently published
(17:20):
national guidelines allowing theremoval of some balconies.
These guidelines were alsochallenged by way of judicial
review.
This Christmas there really is ajudicial review for everyone.
Chapter six Remittal If youlisten this far, thank you, and
(17:41):
you'll be glad to know this iswhere the story finally gets
interesting.
In the first judicial review,when the court quashed the
decision for Ironborn SHD II,the assumption was that our
protagonists were back to thestart.
It subsequently emerged that thejudge had decided that ABP
(18:02):
should have to consider the caseafresh and make a new decision.
So he remitted the case back toABP for review.
ABP told Twinlight a decisionwas due in January 2025.
At the time of recording this,that decision had not issued.
(18:22):
Admittedly, the Postal Serviceto the North Pole is very busy
at the moment, so it's possibleI have missed it.
It appears clear from thejudgment on Ironborn SHD 3 that
a similar result will arise,with the judge remitting the
application back to ABP to makea fresh decision.
Hopefully this time a lawfulone.
(18:43):
But children, all this leads toa bit of a conundrum.
As ABP have not yet made adecision on the remitted
application, Ironborn SHD II, itis now likely that they will be
considering both applications atthe same time.
And if that wasn't enough,there's more.
(19:04):
Chapter 7.
May the Fourth Be With You.
In the intervening several yearssince this story began, a lot of
things changed.
The government became hostile toforeign direct investment in
housing and brought in a myriadof new and largely stupid rules
designed to make the housingmarket less interesting to
(19:26):
foreign investors.
This all happened at the sametime that Russia unlawfully
invaded Ukraine, which led to about of general inflation but
particularly in construction.
The inflation acceleratedalready rising interest rates.
These things all conspired tomake the development twinlight
(19:46):
were planning considerably lessattractive to outside investors.
This project would have consumedclose to 165 million euro in
capital, and nobody writes thatkind of a check unless the risk
reward calculus.
Is good.
Not even S Clause Capital.
By early 2024, still in limbo,waiting for the outcome of the
(20:08):
second judicial review, TwinLights started down the road of
yet another planningapplication.
This time they pursued alow-rise, high-density scheme
under the new large-scaleresidential planning process.
The successor to the SHD.
This design for 209 own doorunits was lodged in August 2025
(20:31):
and a decision is due shortly.
It is the fifth planningapplication on the site in nine
years.
Coda.
A couple of things.
Rick wants me to again point outthat he doesn't blame any of the
various characters involved inthis story.
Twin Light bought the land, theytook the risk.
(20:54):
The residents exercised therights given to them under law.
The courts carried out theirrole, and the judges decided
based on what they believe to becorrect, and ultimately he lost
out.
But as I say to Mrs.
Claws when she is chiding me forthe mess in the kitchen, that is
the way the cookie crumbles.
Nobody can say that any of thosepeople involved are the reason
(21:17):
this project has failed tohappen.
Nothing underhanded happened.
Nobody got special treatment.
In that sense.
The system worked.
In another sense, though, thesystem failed miserably.
The Irish state would havebenefited financially from the
project.
The development contributionsalone on this project would have
(21:40):
been more than seven millioneuros paid directly to DLR
County Council in 2023 terms,probably closer to eight million
in current value.
That is a lot of toys for thechildren.
Central government would havecollected close to thirty
million in VAT paid on thecompleted project, and four
(22:02):
hundred and twenty-twohouseholds would have had
somewhere to live.
And that is a lot of customersfor Santa and a lot of carrots
for Rudolph.
Some of you might point out thatthe expensive apartments Twin
Light were planning to buildweren't exactly going to solve
homelessness, and you're right.
Except you're also wrong.
(22:24):
Because those four hundredtwenty two households now live
somewhere else, and thatdisplaces four hundred
twenty-two other households tosomewhere else, and on and on
down the ladder.
Housing is expensive because itis scarce.
Expensive housing doescontribute significantly to
homelessness.
There is a problem with theplanning system.
(22:46):
It does need to be fixed.
You can blame developers forsmall errors in planning
applications that are oftentwelve thousand pages long.
You can blame ABP for notexplicitly justifying their
reasoning for every singledecision in enough words to
satisfy lawyers.
And you can even take issue withthe involvement of private
(23:08):
capital in the supply of housingaltogether, and believe it
shouldn't happen.
That's all fine.
But in passing that blame youare suggesting nothing should
change.
And if you are leaving thissystem the way it currently is,
nothing is also going to changein terms of the supply of
housing or in terms of the costof it.
(23:29):
Years will go by, land will lievacant, and meanwhile, people
will be living in damp B andB's, B emigrating, or be trying
to get the ride in theirchildhood bedroom if they are
lucky enough to have one, whiletheir parents try to sleep in an
adjacent room.
Certainly not what I want tohave to deal with when
(23:51):
delivering presents.
The consequences of this areserious, and they are long term.
But by all means, go ahead andlay the blame at the door of the
developers.
That strategy has been workingreally well for the last decade.
The infrastructure plan is agood first step, so in a rare
show of support, I tip my Santahat to the current government.
(24:15):
I'll be making a list to see whofollows through, though, and
I'll be checking it twice.
Happy Christmas to all and toall.
A good night.
P.S.
If you enjoyed this podcast,please consider subscribing.
It's completely free, and thereare a large number of episodes
(24:35):
that break down some of thereasons there is a housing
shortage in Ireland.
But even if you don't want toever listen again, please
consider donating to FocusIreland this Christmas.
You can do so at their website,focusireland.ie.
The build is normally hosted byRick Larkin.
Special guest host on thisepisode is Santa Claus.
(24:59):
The views expressed in this andprevious podcasts are personal
to the individual guests and donot necessarily represent the
views of their employers.
Copyright 2025, Rick Larkin.
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