CONCERNS have been raised by a Limerick County Councillor that a new national online portal to submit planning applications might increase the load on data centres.
At this Monday’s meeting of the Council’s Economic Development SPC (Strategic Policy Committee) at County Hall, local representatives were given an update on ePlanning.
This new portal, which will allow people to submit planning applications electronically, is being rolled out to all local authorities in 2022/23. A standardised process, which will reduce print and postage costs and make documents available to the public faster, will be available in Limerick before the end of the year.
Planning applications will still be able to be submitted by post or in person, but the new portal promises to be a win-win in terms of efficiency, cost, time, and climate change.
However, Independent councillor Jerome Scanlan wanted to know if this new ePlanning portal was now going to increase the workload of data centres.
“It’s just an observation. It would be interesting to know,” he told the council executive.
Fianna Fáil councillor Bridie Collins questioned the Council on security of the portal, while Cllr James Collins (FF) asked if the drawings for applications would be in a higher resolution than they are at present.
