The Indo Daily
‘Atomic bombs’, badgers and U2: Ireland’s headline-making planning battles
19 Jun 2026
Transcript generated automatically by AI and may contain errors.
Chapter 1: What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Nights like this don't get any better. The atmosphere is buzzing. The excitement is soaring. The racing is speeding. Your heart is beating. The food and drink is flowing.
there's a lot more to greyhound racing hey there we are Indosport with me John Malloy we cover sport and we have things like this I was kind of blunt well yeah world's not fair you have stage 4 cancer oh well world's not fair but sometimes I think that bluntness helps me and like me and Tommy have terrible sense of humour I think it's really hard for people who don't know us very well because sometimes we throw out something really really dark and people are like Jesus they haven't been around me on this process long enough just yet for me to throw out a little bit of that but me and Tommy find our ways to cope
This is an Irish Independent Podcast.
Activist Ali Hewson is among several Killiney residents objecting to plans for a new luxury apartment complex near her home. The wife of U2's Bono says the development goes against the natural character of the affluent South Dublin suburb. But she's far from the first high-profile figure to weigh in on what gets built nearby.
a wind farm off the coast of Galway and Clare, and would have cost €1.4 billion, so quite a big development for 30 what were described as Eiffel Tower-sized turbines off the coast there in the west.
From celebrities to senior politicians, planning objections can quickly become contentious.
He described the development as a monstrosity, which would put an atomic bomb under the conservation area as we should see it.
So where do we draw the line between legitimate local concerns and the urgent need for housing?
That's just not feasible for people when we do live in a housing crisis and there is such a demand there that isn't being met by the level of supply that we have.
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Chapter 2: What are the current planning objections in Killiney involving Ali Hewson?
And in the end, again, they were successful. That project did not go ahead in the end.
Another one that stands out to me in particular is Pat Kenny. So talk to me about Pat Kenny and what he was objecting to.
It sticks in the mind, I think, for people, this one, because it went on for so long. It went on for a number of years, this dispute. And also it had so many different elements to it as well, some of which were quite interesting, I think, as well. So Pat Kenny and his wife, Cathy, they objected initially to plans for apartment blocks. And this was a site near their home in Dockie in Dublin.
It would have been 18 apartments along with six houses on a 1.4 acre site adjacent to their home. Planning permission was actually granted for that in 2019. But we might put a pin in that and get back to it later because there is another thing that comes in. And this is again on a site adjacent to the home of Pat and Kathy Kenny in Dawkey, a 104 bedroom nursing home.
So a much bigger development than the initial proposal for the houses in one way. So on what grounds were they objecting it to? A few different things. They said there would be a loss of light on their property that would result from the proposal and that would be disastrous for them.
And also arguing as well that there would be a detrimental impact on their home and on other residents in the area. But this is, I think, probably the most memorable and the most interesting element of this whole planning dispute over this nursing home and docky. The fate of a Badger family was very much, I suppose, at the centre of it.
And Pat Kenny spoke about this publicly in interviews, actually. And he said over the course of the years that this dispute was going on, starting off in 2021 and only resolving this year, that there had been a badger family that was living close to their home in Dawkey and that they had lived alongside this family of badgers for more than three decades.
And he said, we're not going to be complicit in these badgers being removed from their homes and ultimately killed. So it was a really interesting element to that planning dispute.
terms of the result of it then so as i said earlier the uh the 2019 proposal for the apartments in the houses they did lose that objection and that planning permission for that was granted but um the planning permission ultimately expired actually so they even though the permission was granted it never actually And it never actually went in.
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Chapter 3: What is the significance of the proposed luxury apartment complex in South Dublin?
So his argument, this is another quote from Jack Chambers, the fact that people think they have a veto on more people living around them, I think, is a mindset that has to change. Additional housing, new people living in an area enhances the diversity and character of an area. So you might say it's one thing when he's speaking about the issue publicly and then
you go back X number of years and he's lodged an objection to a development himself. But look at people's opinions on these things can change as well.
But it is interesting and I suppose that does really show the kind of balance that has to be struck between providing a supply of housing and then local concerns as well and taking that into account, I suppose, until you're actually in the position where you are impacted and your local community is impacted. It's a difficult... situation to be in.
But then we have Francis Noel Duffy from the Green Party. This was in 2024, I believe. This made headlines as well. So maybe tell me about Francis Noel Duffy's objection to a development.
Francis Noel Duffy, who before the last general election was a Green Party TD, but also I think most interestingly in the context of this story, was also the Green Party's housing spokesperson at the time. So anything to do with housing, to do with a housing spokesperson for a party, obviously going to maybe attract a little bit more attention and generate a slightly juicier headline.
He objected to a proposed development for more than 300 homes in that would have been built next to his home in Dublin. It was on a number of grounds, but again, kind of the typical things that you might see in objection to a planning proposal, overlooking concerns about the height of the development, the density of the development as well.
He objected to the application and he said that the development overlooked the kitchen in the house there. Now, ultimately, there was planning permission granted for these units to be built.
But when this kind of drummed up a little bit of attention, I suppose the other interesting thing about it as well is that we were in the throes of the 2024 general election campaign as well when this happened. hit the headlines in November of 2024. But his own party leader, Roderick O'Gorman, did defend him. He described the objection that Francis Noel Duffy put in as a legitimate one.
And he said that in this situation, the inspector from on board Panola actually agreed to the position that the homes proposed was in breach of the local area plan. Now, the objection didn't succeed initially. There was planning permission granted, but there was a later High Court ruling then that overturned that planning permission.
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