Local authorities across the country started a recruitment campaign on Tuesday intended to hire more than 40 planners as part of a wider attempt to facilitate the building of more homes.
Local Government Ireland advertised a total of 43 openings for graduate planners across 26 of the country’s 31 local authorities.
The recruitment drive was one of a number of strategies the last government said it would pursue to increase planning capacity across the State as part of drive towards the construction of additional housing.
The provision of additional places in planning courses at third level and the recruitment of more senior planners back from abroad were among the other measures provided for in the Ministerial Action Plan on Planning Resources, published by then minister for housing Darragh O’Brien last October.
The roles advertised on Tuesday are entry level graduate ones which initially pay almost €39,000, a figure that rises to about €50,000 with annual increments.
A senior planner in the public service can earn up to about €108,000.
“Planners are critical to tackling the big challenges facing the world in which we live – including housing, protecting our environment, biodiversity and heritage,” said Liam Conneally, chair of the County and City Management Association’s planning and land use committee.
“This new stream of planners will have a real and direct impact on sculpting areas in which they themselves live,” added Mr Conneally, who is also chief executive of Galway County Council.
Last month, Mr O’Brien’s successor at the department, James Browne, said the country’s local authorities would be instructed to reopen county development plans before the end of the year with a view to rezoning significant amounts of land for residential use.
He said additional resources would be provided by Government to help with the process and in its announcement on Tuesday, Local Government Ireland acknowledged the recruitment initiative was on foot of the action plan, which sets out a roadmap to increase the pool of planning expertise in the sector.
The revised National Planning Framework includes targets for 50,000 new homes to be built every year to 2040 but infrastructure issues are seen as a big barrier to achieving the numbers. The provision of additional planning expertise is intended to help equip local authorities and other agencies to deal with the challenges involved.
John Cummins, Minister of State at the Department of Housing, said on Tuesday the department was “working with the local government sector to ensure planning authorities have the requisite level of staffing, resources and expertise to efficiently and effectively perform their planning functions”.
The new roles are open to graduates with an honours degree in planning or those who expect to get one this year. Details are at localgovernmentjobs.ie.
