How long does An Coimisiún Pleanála take to decide an appeal?

What the register shows

The Commission publishes every case it has received or decided since 1 January 2016 as an open dataset, with the date each case was lodged and the date it was decided. We read those two dates for every decided case and count the days between them. A case counts only when both dates are present and the span is between zero and 3,000 days; missing dates, negative spans and multi-year outliers are left out rather than corrected.

Their median was 134 days, the quarter that finished fastest took 106 days or fewer, the quarter that finished slowest took 242 days or more, and one case in ten took 428 days or more. The spread matters more than the median: the slow end is long enough to move a funding drawdown or a site start by a season.

The register holds several case types, and the headline figures above blend them. Looking at the planning appeals category alone, the median was 133 days across 22,817 decided appeals.

How it changed year by year

Grouped by the year the decision was made, the median moved sharply. The figures below are medians in days, using only years with at least 200 decided cases.

• The median rose from 178 days for 2022 decisions to 351 days for 2023 decisions, then eased to 275 days for 2024.
• 20.9% of cases decided in 2024 were inside 18 weeks, against 56.8% of those decided in 2025.
• The register records dates, not reasons, so it cannot say why 2023 and 2024 were slower.

Why the latest years read faster than they are

Read the recent figures with care. A case that is still open has no decision date, so it is not in the data at all. Cases decided in the latest year are therefore drawn mostly from appeals that were lodged recently and finished quickly, while the slow ones lodged in the same period are still to come. This is a known bias in any waiting-time count taken from decided cases (statisticians call it right-censoring), and it always pushes the newest years down.

So the latest year is never a trend here. Read the table as evidence that 2023 and 2024 were the slow years in the record, not proof that the Commission is now quicker: the slow tail of cases lodged in 2025 and 2026 will lift later medians.

What the law sets as the target

Section 126(2) of the Planning and Development Act 2000 makes it the objective of the Commission to determine every appeal or referral within 18 weeks beginning on the date of receipt, or such other period as the Minister prescribes. The text still refers to the Board; the Planning and Development Act 2024 renamed it. The Law Reform Commission's revised Act, updated to 12 August 2026, carries section 126 unchanged and describes the Act as up to date with all changes known to be in force.

It is an objective, not a deadline. Under section 126(3), if the Commission cannot meet the period it must serve a written notice on the parties before the period ends, giving its reasons and the date by which it intends to decide, and it must then take the steps open to it to decide before that date. Section 126A sets a shorter 16 weeks for appeals under the large-scale residential development route where no oral hearing is held, with a prescribed period where one is.

The Planning and Development Act 2024 was enacted as Number 34 of 2024. Section 361 of that Act, as enacted, says the Commission shall determine an appeal within 18 weeks of receiving it, provides for a prescribed share of fees to be paid back when it is missed, and says a miss does not invalidate the decision. The 2024 Act is being brought into force in phases by ministerial order, and the 2000 Act continues to apply to the provisions not yet commenced. We could not verify from a source we can fetch whether section 361 has been commenced, so check the commencement orders before relying on that refund.

How to read a case on pleanala.ie

Every case has a reference made of a prefix, a six digit case number and a two digit year of lodging, for example ABP-322568-25. The prefix followed the body's name, so older cases show ABP and newer ones can show ACP. The six digits are what you need: put them at the end of https://www.pleanala.ie/en-ie/case/ to open the case page, or use the case search on the same site.

On the case page, read four things. The lodged date in the history is the start of the clock. The line "Case is due to be decided by" shows the date the Commission is working to while a case is open, and a notice under section 126(3) is where a revised date would come from. The case type and the EIAR and NIS flags tell you whether it is an ordinary appeal or a heavier assessment. The history lists events such as a request for further information or an oral hearing, each of which can add weeks.

One trap for anyone measuring durations: a case that has been reactivated can be given a new number and a new lodged date, with the old number noted in the history. Check the history before you quote a duration, because the new date alone understates the real wait.

What moves a case faster or slower

The register records outcomes, not the steps in between, so these are the factors that the legislation and the case pages point to rather than measured effects.

• Oral hearing: section 134 of the 2000 Act lets the Commission hold one in its discretion, and a party can request one in writing with any fee. A hearing adds a hearing date, the inspector's report and the decision after it.
• Request for further information: the Commission can ask a party for more information or documents, which adds time while the answer is awaited and considered. For LRD appeals, section 126A(3) ties the decision to four weeks after the notice is complied with.
• Case type: a strategic infrastructure application goes straight to the Commission and is not an appeal against a council decision. Referrals, substitute consent and LRD appeals follow their own rules, so compare like with like.
• Environmental assessment: an EIAR or a Natura impact statement on the case page signals more material to examine, and the 2024 Act provides for class-specific periods for some case types.

How often appeals are granted, refused or withdrawn

Of 22,829 planning appeals (category Appeals) with a decision date, 48.4% ended in a grant of permission of some kind, 29.4% in a refusal, and 4.7% were withdrawn. The rest were other outcomes such as confirming the council's determination or a split decision. Decision wording in the register is free text with many spellings, so we group it by keyword: anything withdrawn is withdrawn, anything with grant but not refuse is a grant, and anything with refuse but not grant is a refusal.

These shares count the appeals of any kind that reached the Commission, including first-party appeals against a refusal and third-party appeals against a grant, so they are not the odds that a given application succeeds. They describe the register, not a finding about any party.

What this means for your programme

Take a developer who holds a council grant that a third party has appealed, with a site start pencilled in. Using the register, the sensible planning case is not the 18 weeks in the Act and not the median. A cautious programme puts the decision at the upper quartile, 242 days after lodging, and carries float out to 428 days for funding conditions, option expiry dates and subcontractor lead times.

A planning consultant advising on a refusal faces the same arithmetic from the other side: an appeal costs a fee and a wait that has a median of 134 days and a tail well beyond it. If the project cannot carry that wait, a revised application to the council may be the faster route, which is a judgment for the case, not something this register can decide. A contractor waiting on a decision should treat the case page's due date as the Commission's own target, not a promise.