A group is to be set up to give ordinary people a voice in planning affairs, it emerged tonight.
It will target local authorities who do not enforce planning laws and help people to object to unsuitable developments.
The group will select its formal name at a public meeting in Boyle, Co Roscommmon next week.
Spokeswoman Ms Catherine Ansbro said: "We will address planning issues which affect people in rural and urban areas. Problems about lack of planning information and access are equally true in urban and rural areas."
She said an enormous range of problems had been aired at the group's first meeting last month.
"The range of queries was so deep and the level of frustration so great that we decided we had to do something to move it forward."
The group plans to set up a website and a helpline to provide an information resource for people.
Ms Ansbro said this would help people who were struggling to deal with planning issues on their own.
"Ordinary people don't have the resources to take legal action against a local authority to get them to enforce the law. Unless you're independently wealthy, there's nothing you can do. It makes a laughing stock of the whole concept of planning."
The controversial issue of one-off-housing led to the formation of another lobby group last year, the Irish Rural Dwellers Organisation.
In March, Minister for Environment Mr Martin Cullen introduced new guidelines aimed at greatly reducing the overturning of planning permission for one-off housing.
The new group is in favour of rural housing which is built for local people but hostile to developments built without proper planning permission.
"We're very much in favour of development but development needs to be responsible. We're all living with the results of poor planning decisions being made," said Ms Ansbro.
The group will be apolitical and hopes to attract legal environmental and information technology experts to assist in its work.
The group's public meeting will be held in Kingsland, Boyle, Co Roscommon on August 25th.