How long planning takes, and how often it is refused

Is it getting harder?

Refusal rate by quarter of decision. A snapshot says what the market is; this says what it is doing.

The final quarter is still accumulating decisions and is shaded to say so: read it as a quarter in progress, not as a change.

How this is measured

• • Determined applications only. An application counts once it is granted or refused. Withdrawn, invalid and still-open applications are excluded, because a refusal rate that counts them measures administration rather than planning outcomes.
• • Decision time is a median, not an average. A handful of multi-year cases would drag a mean upward and describe nobody's experience. Lags beyond two years, and any decision dated before its own lodgement, are treated as source errors and excluded from the timing figure only.
• • Authorities with fewer than 100 determinations in the window are omitted rather than published with a rate a few decisions could swing.
• • Quarters use the decision date, and only well-formed dates reach a published period: two council registers write dates in a different format, and a single stray value would otherwise invent a quarter.
• • Source: the statutory public planning registers of all 31 Irish local authorities, refreshed weekly. Aggregate figures only, no personal data.