Donegal County Council is examining a proposal to place an officer in each of the county's six electoral areas to tackle unauthorised building developments.
Donegal assistant county manager, Mr Liam Kelly, last night said there were a "huge number" of such developments. Staff shortages coupled with the increase in planning applications were making it difficult for unauthorised developers to be challenged, he said. The council is examining a proposal to appoint dedicated planning officers to monitor developments in each electoral area.
According to Mr Kelly, such a pilot project had to be aborted last year in west Donegal because of falling staff levels in the council's planning department.
"There are a huge number of unauthorised developments all over the county at the moment and this is clearly an unacceptable situation," he said.
"We're currently looking at what level of activity is needed to police unauthorised developments in an urgent way and this will involve bringing people to court to get convictions."
Prosecutions would not stop at the District Court, where fines might not be prohibitive to some developers. "We will consider taking cases to the higher courts to ensure people comply," Mr Kelly said.