The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage has made a further set of Regulations amending the Planning and Development Regulations 2001 (“2001 Regulations”).
In Renewable Energy: Update on Permit-granting Procedures in Ireland, we outlined amendments to transpose rules on permit-granting procedures, required under the Renewable Energy Directive (“RED III”). The amendments were made by European Union (Planning and Development) (Renewable Energy) Regulations 2025. This first set of Regulations was made on 6 August 2025 and came into operation at the end of 5 August 2025 (albeit some provisions apply only to an application or request made on or after 1 October 2025).
A second set of Regulations were made with the aim of rectifying some issues that have arisen: European Union (Planning and Development) (Renewable Energy) (No. 2) Regulations 2025.
The second set of Regulations:
- inserts a new Form No. 23 to Schedule 3 of the 2001 Regulations, as the new site notice to be used by planning permission applicants specifically for RED III Development,
- undoes the amendments made by the first set of Regulations to the site notice at Form No. 1 of Schedule 3 of the 2001 Regulations, and
- includes a provision that seeks to address the position of site notices erected or newspaper notices published on or after 6 August 2025 until 25 September 2025. However, we expect that further clarity will be required.
Careful scrutiny of the changes to the current regime will be required in any planning application about to be made in the renewable energy sector.