IPI 50 Years Celebrations - Planning Institute Anniversary

December 2025 marks end of year celebrating Irish Planning Institute's 50th anniversary since founding in 1975 whilst also seeing the conclusion of the current Council term with a range of governance changes including the election of a reshaped Board of Directors.

Gavin Lawlor, completing two year term as IPI President and Director at Tom Phillips Associates with extensive experience in development plans, quarrying, wind farms and Bord Pleanála oral hearings, alongside Philip Jones, past IPI President serving 26 and a quarter years on Council including seven Presidents as Honorary Secretary with 41 year public sector career from Waterford City Council through Kildare County Council to Bord Pleanála senior planning inspector, assistant director and board member, explain why the housing crisis narrative unfairly scapegoats planners whilst media seeks opposing views rather than balanced explanations.

They also discuss how the 2024 Planning and Development Act 2024 requires practical stress testing with practitioners – the planners who have to implement the new legislation, and who are represented by the IPI - before Regulations commence, thereby avoiding history repeating itself with amendments before proper enactment.  Internally within the Institute, they outline how governance changes, modernising its original 1982 structure, has represented a Herculean task.  They also discuss some significant resourcing achievements during the last two years, including securing planners on the Government’s critical skills list and successfully removing a 2011 Departmental circular that required experienced planners to start at the bottom of local authority salary grades.

With expertise spanning development control, climate change adaptation, flood plains zoning restrictions and relationship maturation between IPI and RTPI establishing proper respect for Irish planners' capabilities, the discussion covers the Grafton Street pedestrianisation campaign against major stores and roads department opposition, the Flood Tribunal era demonstrating that no planners were identified for corruption, unlike councillors and senior administrators, and why climate change represents the single biggest challenge beyond housing.

QUOTES

“It's down to housing, housing and more housing and everything that facilitates or interferes with the ability to be able to deliver housing”. - Gavin Lawlor

“Planning is social, there's a bit of geography in it and everybody has an opinion about wher