Two separate regimes now apply to a conversation with an elected member about a planning matter. One creates a criminal offence. The other requires the contact to be recorded on a public register. They operate independently, and a single communication can engage both.
Until the end of 2025 neither of these applied in the way it now does. Section 114 of the Planning and Development Act 2000 made improper communication an offence, but only in relation to An Bord Pleanála. There was no planning offence covering contact with a councillor. And the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 reached planning communications only through its general size thresholds, which most individuals and small firms fell below.
Both positions changed. Section 5(1)(c) of the 2015 Act, which covers communications about the development or zoning of land and has no size threshold at all, was inserted with effect from 1 January 2024 by section 4(c) of the Regulation of Lobbying and Oireachtas (Allowances to Members) (Amendment) Act 2023. Section 575 of the Planning and Development Act 2024 commenced on 31 December 2025 under S.I. 633 of 2025, and the same order updated the planning citation inside the 2015 Act so that the lobbying regime continues to apply as the 2024 Act takes over.
The two do different work and it is worth keeping them apart. Section 575 is about purpose: it prohibits a communication made in order to influence someone improperly, and makes that a criminal offence. The lobbying regime is about transparency: it does not prohibit the communication at all, it requires it to be registered and publicly returned. A communication can be entirely proper and still have to be registered. A communication can also be unregistered and improper, in which case both are in play.
Section 575(1) makes it an offence to communicate with a listed person for the purpose of influencing improperly the person communicated with as to the performance of functions under the Act.
Two things widened compared with section 114 of the 2000 Act. The first is who is covered. Section 575(1)(b) reaches any member of a planning authority, and also any officer of a planning authority of a class, description or grade as may be prescribed. No regulations prescribing officers have been made, so as matters stand the offence bites on councillors and on no council officials. That will change when the regulations are made. Commissioners and staff of An Coimisiún Pleanála are covered separately.
The second is the range of decisions. Section 114 was confined to the consideration of an appeal or referral or a decision of the Board. Section 575 covers the performance of any function under the Act, which takes in a development plan variation, a vote on a material contravention under section 99, a declaration, and an enforcement decision.
The operative word is improperly. Making a case on the planning merits to an elected member is not what the section prohibits, and the section does not purport to stop members of the public, residents' groups or agents from contacting their councillors about planning. What it reaches is a communication whose purpose is to influence the member improperly. Where the line falls has not been tested in the courts.
Section 5 of the 2015 Act gives three routes into "carrying on lobbying activities". Two of them apply only where the person meets a size threshold in section 5(2): more than ten full-time employees, or a body with employees existing primarily to represent its members or to take up particular issues. Since 1 January 2024 section 5(2) also reaches bodies with no full-time employees in certain cases, which brings some residents' associations and community groups within it that were previously outside.
The third route has no threshold of any kind.
Because section 5(1)(c) sits outside section 5(2), size is irrelevant to it. A sole practitioner is caught. So is an individual acting on their own behalf, subject to the exception for a person's own home described below. This is the reason the lobbying regime applies to planning work when it does not apply to most small businesses, and it is the part most often missed.
Councillors are designated public officials. Section 6(1)(d) says so in terms, and section 6 has not been amended. Ministers, Ministers of State, TDs, Senators, MEPs and special advisers are also designated public officials. Whether a particular official is one depends on the regulations made under section 6(1)(f), currently the Regulation of Lobbying Act 2015 (Designated Public Officials) Regulations 2024, S.I. 424 of 2024. There is a simpler way to check: section 6(4) requires every body to publish an up-to-date list of its own designated public officials, with names, grades and a note of their roles. Look for the body's published list rather than working it out from the regulations.
Section 5(4) defines the relevant communications broadly: communications "whether oral or written and however made", made "personally (directly or indirectly)" to a designated public official in relation to a relevant matter. A phone call counts. A conversation at a clinic or after a meeting counts. So does a communication routed through someone else, because of the word "indirectly", and section 5(1)(c) separately catches a person who directs the making of it.
The narrowing filter is the definition of "relevant matter" in section 5(9). It covers the initiation, development or modification of any public policy or programme, the preparation or amendment of an enactment, and the award of certain grants, contracts and authorisations involving public funds, "apart from any matter relating only to the implementation of any such policy, programme, enactment or award or of a technical nature".
That carve-out is where the practical line sits, and it is narrower than it first looks because of the word "only".
| Clearly within the regime | Arguably outside, on the implementation or technical carve-out |
|---|---|
| A submission or representation on a draft development plan or a variation | A communication about an individual planning application |
| Arguing for or against a zoning objective | A compliance or points of detail submission |
| Representations on an area plan, or on a National Planning Statement consultation | A technical query to a planner |
| Contact with a councillor about a material contravention resolution | A request for factual information, which is separately excepted by section 5(5)(d) |
The right-hand column is an argument rather than a settled answer. The safer working assumption is that development plan, variation and zoning work is within the regime, and that anything relied on as falling outside it should be checked against the Standards Commission's published guidance first.
Section 5(5)(a) excepts communications by or on behalf of an individual relating to their private affairs, about any matter other than the development or zoning of land, apart from the individual's principal private residence. Read in three steps: private-affairs communications are excepted; the exception is withdrawn where the subject is development or zoning; and it is then restored where the land is the individual's principal private residence.
Section 5(9) defines that term. It means the dwelling house occupied as the individual's only or main residence, and includes land held for their own occupation and enjoyment as its garden or grounds up to one acre, exclusive of the dwelling house.
| Situation | Lobbying regime |
|---|---|
| An individual communicating about their own home and up to an acre of garden | Outside |
| A site that is not yet the individual's residence | Inside |
| An individual's home together with more than an acre | Inside, at least as to the excess |
| Any development or zoning communication made by a company, or on a client's behalf for payment | Inside, and section 5(1)(c) has no threshold |
The one-acre limit is the point worth knowing before assuming that a rural site or a larger holding falls outside the regime.
A registered person must make a return to the Standards Commission after each return period. A nil return is required if no lobbying was carried on in the period, under section 12(3). There are three periods a year.
| Return period | Return due |
|---|---|
| 1 January to 30 April | 21 May |
| 1 May to 31 August | 21 September |
| 1 September to 31 December | 21 January |
Where lobbying was carried on, section 12(4) requires the return to state, among other things, the client's name, business address, main activities, contact details, Companies Registration Office number and registered office; the designated public officials communicated with and the body employing them; and the subject matter of the communications and the results they were intended to secure. The return carries a statement that the information is correct.
The register is public and searchable. The practical consequence for anyone instructing an agent on a plan or zoning matter is that their name, their business and the substance of what was sought will appear on a public register. That is a conversation worth having at the outset rather than after the return is filed.
Three things are open at the date of writing, and it is better to say so than to state them with more confidence than the sources support.
Where "improperly" begins. Section 575 has not been tested. The section does not define the word, and there is no guidance on it from the Department.
Whether an individual planning application is a relevant matter. The "implementation or technical" carve-out in section 5(9) is the argument for saying it is not, but the statutory words are broad and the carve-out is confined to matters relating only to implementation. The Standards Commission's published position is what should be followed.
Which officials are covered. For section 575, no officers have been prescribed yet, so the offence currently reaches elected members and not officials. For the lobbying regime, the answer turns on S.I. 424 of 2024 and on each body's own published list under section 6(4).
There is also a separate restriction that applies to people who have held certain public offices. Section 22 of the 2015 Act prevents a former relevant designated public official from carrying on lobbying activities, or being employed to do so, for one year after leaving, without the consent of the Commission, and only where the communications involve a body the person was connected with in their final year or are made to an official connected with that body. It applies to Ministers, special advisers and prescribed public servants under section 6(1)(a), (e) and (f). It does not apply to councillors, TDs or Senators.
We can set out which regime applies to a proposed communication and what has to be recorded.