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

How Monaghan compares with the other councils

Monaghan ranks 9th of 30 councils on the share of applications granted, with 93%, close to the 90% of the median council. Decisions take far longer than at most councils. Half of the decisions came after more than 100 days, when the median council takes 55 days; no council has a longer median wait. Nine in ten decisions came within 258 days, against 209 days at the median council.

Monaghan asks for further information more often than most councils: the register records a request on 66% of all the decisions it records, against 39% for the median council, the highest share of any council, and its decisions also take longer than the median. The register flags only 1 of Monaghan's decisions as a one-off house, too few to compare with other applications.

The number of applications has held steady: 606 in 2019 and 651 in 2025. The busiest full year was 2021, with 753 applications; 20 of the 31 councils peaked in that year.

What Monaghan reported for 2025

In Monaghan, farm buildings are the clear second group: 44 applications, against 202 for dwellings and only 4 for commercial premises, the joint lowest commercial count in the returns. Social-use buildings follow with 15. Refusals were rare, 15 across categories, 12 of them on houses; only Leitrim reported fewer. The council ruled 115 applications invalid. Industrial sites (7) and public buildings (2) are small groups, and civil engineering and other functional categories are at zero. The return counts 165 applications decided within 8 weeks. What sets Monaghan apart is time rather than refusals: few applications are turned down, but no council has a longer median wait in the register. Monaghan's filings fell to 562 in 2022 and have risen in each year since, to 651 in 2025. The long wait comes with a modest return: 25 councils reported larger category totals than Monaghan's 274. Its 44 farm buildings outnumber those of Dublin City and Fingal, councils with far larger returns.

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 Monaghan

In the national register, Monaghan applications link to their files on eplanning.ie/MonaghanCC.