Backyard cabins Community rallies as pensioner faces eviction from log cabin on his own land
were taken on foot of complaints made by members of the public.
Galway City Council confirmed it took two cases in relation to log cabins without planning permission, both the result of complaints. A spokeswoman said the cases have concluded, and that neither of the structures was dismantled.
Dublin City Council insisted it could not provide any statistics because it only records its enforcement cases by the address at which a planning breach has occurred.
Officials at Roscommon County Council claimed they were unable to provide figures because of ‘demands on resources’, while Cavan County Council said it would ‘take time to collate the requested data’.
Offaly County Council also said it would need more time to provide information about enforcement proceedings.
Commenting on the crackdown, Independent TD Mattie McGrath warned the number of enforcement orders issued so far may be just a fraction of impending cases.
The Tipperary TD – who is lobbying on behalf of his constituent
Seán Meehan – told the MoS: ‘I had a woman from Dublin rang me. She’s in the same situation as Seán. The company she got it [log cabin] off were doing 50 a week. I have eight or 10 cases that I’m actively dealing with in Tipperary. I have another five or six that are living in fear that they’ll be pounced on.’
Mr McGrath has called for changes in planning laws that would give people living in log cabins ‘an amnesty of five, eight, 10 years for people to get things in order, get them on the housing ladder and off the housing list’.
The Independent TD said: ‘There was a council briefing in Clonmel that they’re putting 82 modular homes on the outskirts of the town on HSE land under this emergency act where they don’t need planning. They’re exempt from planning for Ukrainians. And Seán
Meehan out the road is being put to jail for having something similar.
‘This man never asked for a house off the council. He bought a bit of land and he wrapped his mobile and made it into a lovely log cabin. He applied for planning and was refused. He’s been brought to court to remove it and told he’ll be forced to pay the cost of removing it.’
In response to queries from the MoS, a spokesman for the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said: ‘Updated rural housing guidelines are currently being prepared by the department. In the meantime, the current sustainable rural housing guidelines from 2005 continue to have effect and continue to be used by planning authorities when determining planning applications.
‘The suggestion that county councils are not allowed to give planning permission for rural housing is not correct. Permissions for more than 5,000 one-off houses were granted in 2023, the vast majority of which are in rural areas indicating strong provision of new housing in rural Ireland.’
A PENSIONER living in a log cabin built on his own land is hoping it will be ‘third time lucky’ in applying for planning permission – or else he faces the prospect of prison and ultimately being made homeless.
Seán Meehan from Woodinstown, Co. Tipperary, has already appeared in court several times over the converted mobile home he has been staying in for almost five years.
Two weeks ago, Tipperary County Council’s planning enforcement case against him was adjourned until June 6, amid media attention and a protest organised by supporters.
Mr Meehan said he had been through the planning application process twice already now, ‘so maybe it’ll be third time lucky’.
He told the Irish Mail on Sunday: ‘It [the application] will probably take 10 to 12 weeks. I don’t know if it will coincide then with June 6, so I’m kind of in limbo – I don’t know where I’m going from here.’
The 65-year-old had a bag packed ready for several months in Limerick Prison after his last court appearance. He says he became ‘prepared to go to jail’ to make a stand when he realised how many people are in a similar situation.
The retired tradesman bought a mobile home from a friend to put on his own land after the breakdown of his marriage.
But ‘frozen toilet water’ and a series of health problems, including bronchitis, meant he had to insulate and fit out the mobile home properly.
He called in friends to help him turn the mobile home into a neat log cabin, inspired by another he had seen, and where he now lives with his pet springer spaniels Jess and Lady, and cat Oscar.
‘This is what we did in our day – dry lining and insulation and all – so we knew exactly what we were doing. We used the best gear; we lifted it and insulated it all underneath. A friend of mine who’s a plumber came with radiators and a burner and put that in. It was a really smart job.’
He then applied for retention permission to allow him to hold it on the site for five years, which ‘would give me a gist of what I’m going to do with it’.
But the council said ‘absolutely no way’, Mr Meehan said, on the grounds that ‘aesthetically it didn’t look right’, it would devalue other properties in the area and – ‘this is the one that broke me – they said I didn’t show a social and economic need to live in the area’.
Mr Meehan’s family have lived in the area for generations.
During the process, Mr Meehan suffered a health setback, resulting in surgery for feared prostate cancer that fortunately did not materialise.
Mr Meehan’s daughter brought a petition to the neighbours to show the council that he is well-known and well-liked locally and is a valued member of the community.
‘Then they started to take me to court. They said it was an unauthorised development and I had to take it down, and I refused point blank to take it down. I said, if I take it down, I’m homeless. If I don’t take it down, they’ll take it down and send me to Limerick jail. And then when I come home, I’m still homeless.’
Mr Meehan acknowledges that planning regulations are there for a reason and that he ‘went about it a bit a***ways, but circumstances dictate what you do. Then I was ill and all, so one priority took over from another.’
Mr Meehan said he ‘hated far-right s***e’, in reference to anti-immigration activists who attempted to use his planning plight for their own political ends. On one occasion he had to get his ‘biker buddies’ to remove some agitators who turned up at a local protest.
A statement previously issued by the council’s director of planning services, Sharon Kennedy, said: ‘As neither application, as presented, was considered to be in compliance with the policy requirements as set out in the Tipperary County Development Plan, the council had no option but to issue refusals in both instances.
‘It is noted that the applicant was entitled to appeal these decisions to An Bord Pleanála but did not do so.’
‘He’ll be forced to pay for removing it’