Limerick planning permission: how often it is granted, and how long it takes

How Limerick compares with the other councils

Limerick ranks 19th of 30 councils on the share of applications granted, with 89%, close to the 90% of the median council. Its median wait matches that of the median council: 55 days. Nine in ten decisions came within 192 days, against 209 days at the median council.

The register records a request for further information on 40% of all the decisions it records, in line with the median council (39%). None of Limerick's decisions in the 12 months is flagged as a one-off house in the register.

Applications are up. Limerick received 1,444 in 2025, 16% more than the 1,250 of 2019. The busiest full year was 2021, with 1,641 applications; 20 of the 31 councils peaked in that year.

What Limerick reported for 2025

Limerick reported more refusals than any other council: 268 across categories, 208 of them for houses and 36 for other buildings for social use. That second category is unusually large here, with 269 applications, the most of any council in the returns, and its refusals of industrial projects (8) are also the top figure. Dwellings (1,289) rank 4th nationally, and farm buildings (129) come third in the council's own list. The council has the third-highest count for government, health and education buildings (44) and ruled 495 applications invalid. House refusals (208) come 2nd after Meath, and farm-building refusals (7) 3rd. Only Dublin City, Cork County and Kildare ruled more applications invalid. The civil engineering and other functional lines are empty, and 632 applications were decided within 8 weeks, 11th nationally. The large refusal total comes with a large return: in the register, Limerick's share granted, 89%, is close to the median council's 90%. Filings dipped to 1,162 in 2023 before rising to 1,444 in 2025. Its 83 commercial premises rank 7th and its 28 industrial sites joint 7th. No council refused more social-use buildings. In the register, its 1,287 grants and refusals in the 12 months make it the eighth-largest caseload of the 30 councils.

These figures come from each council's annual return to the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage: applications received in 2025, decisions to refuse and other measures, published under a CC BY-SA 4.0 licence. An application that fits several categories is counted in each, so the categories do not add up to a number of applications, and the Department notes that councils may have read its guidance in slightly different ways.

Following an application in Limerick

In the national register, Limerick applications link to their files on eplanning.ie/LimerickCCC.