The Gazette 1978

GAZETTE

DECEMBER 1978

SOCIETY PUBLISHES GUIDE TO THE PLANNING ACTS

preface and despite the problems caused by having both general and particular amendments I think people will agree that he has provided a practical and helpful solution." "I have no doubt that he has produced a work which will be of very great convenience to Professionals and Laymen alike and a very necessaty facility for those who are concerned with the study or administration of the Planning Acts." In his remarks at the launching Mr. John Buckley the Chairman of the Society's Text Book Publication Sub- Committee referred to the steady stream of publications which had either been published by the Society itself or with which the Society had been concerned as sponsors or advisers. He commented that the Society had been disappointed with the apparent reluctance of the Staffs of the Law Faculties in the Irish Universities to undertake authorship of text books. Not one application had been received by the Society in response to its last advertisement offering to sponsor such publication. The Book which incorporates the text of the Statutes with case notations and an index comprises 215 pages and is available from the Law Society at £6 per copy.

The Society was pleased to welcome Mr. Sylvester Barrett, Minister for the Environment, to the launching of the Society's new publication "A Guide to the Planning Acts" by Kevin I. Nowlan recently. In his short speech Mr. Barrett said: "It gives me great pleasure therefore to be associated with the launching of Mr. Nowlan's Guide to the Planning Acts. There is no doubt that this kind of Guide is badly needed. The 1963 Act is a complex piece of legislation and it has gone through the test of time extraordinarily well". "The amending Act of 1976 brought the usual problems for a Practitioner. The original purpose of the Bill was to set up the Planning Board and this was generally agreed by all sides in the Oireachtas. However the opportunity was taken to secure various improvements in the 1963 Act and many amendments were introduced during the passage of the Bill. The result is that the Practitioner seeking to establish the Law on a particular point may have to hunt backwards and forwards between the two enactments. He will be happy to find that the Guide relieves him of the tedium and uncertainty of chasing references. The manner in which Mr. Nowlan has dealt with this matter is. outlined in his

Book Reviews

A GUIDE TO THE PLANNING ACTS by K. I. Nowlan. Dublin: The Incorporated Law Society of Ireland, 1978. xiii, 215p. £6.00, plus 40p postage. In musical terms the Local Government (Planning and Development) Act, 1963, might be described as an instrument which is capable of contributing to a beautiful performance but which is difficult to play. The amending Act of 1976 was designed to improve the performance but in some ways it makes the playing even more difficult. Mr. Kevin Nowlan in writing his Guide to the Planning Acts has attempted to ease this difficulty so that for planners and lawyers, a good performance can be achieved even by players of average ability: to a considerable extent he has achieved his goal. The publication of the 1963 Act with all the 1976 Act amendments "written in" will be of assistance particularly to students and to members of the physical planning profession. For the practising lawyer however, the text of the 1963 Act in its unamended form will continue to have significance for many years to come and use of the text as amended can lead to error. It would have greatly facilitated the use of this book if the amendments to the

1963 Act had been printed so as to be readily identifiable, either by italicisation or by underlining. Mr. Nowlan has kept himself remarkably well in touch with the most recent decisions of the Courts relating to the Planning legislation and his references to these cases are a valuable part of his text. It is a sad commentary that of the twenty-four Irish legal decisions listed on page xi of this book eleven are "unreported". A number of these unreported cases touch on matters of considerable significance and it is a constant frustration for students, legal practitioners and planners that the texts of these judgments are not more readily available. In writing this Guide to the Planning Acts Mr. Nowlan has achieved more than a "foraging expedition". He has succeeded in narrowing the gap between the two separate worlds referred to in the quotation in his preface — the world of ministerial circulars and judicial decisions and the world of practice at the level of the local planning authority. Michael Murphy 211