Invalidated
23.3%
of planning applications received in 2025 were sent back as invalid.
8,191 of 35,201 applications
01 The operational layer for Irish government
Capacityfor growth.
One operational record for every application, every council and every officer. People and AI agents act on it, inside exactly the access they hold.
- 31
- Local authorities
- 35,201
- Planning applications received in 2025
- 8 weeks
- Statutory clock on each decision
02 The problem
More applications are failing.Fewer planners are there to catch them.
Deferred
40.2%
of decisions were deferred while the council asked for further information.
11,693 deferred, 17,426 decided in 8 weeks
Hired
86of 541
Councils identified a shortfall of 541 planning staff. By May 2025, 86 posts had been filled.
101 posts approved in phase one
Sources. Percentages are Omnium’s calculations from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage datasetPlanning Applications 2025. Staffing: Dáil written answers of11 May 2023and20 May 2025. Notice period:Planning and Development Regulations 2001, article 17.
03 The Omnium ontology
Data, logic, action, access.One model of how a council works.
An ontology is a working model of an organisation: its records, its rules, the actions people take and who may take them.
What exists
Objects
Every application, site, applicant and decision is an object, linked to everything it touches.
- Applications
- Sites
- Applicants
- Decisions
What applies
Logic
The Planning Acts and each council’s own rules, written once and applied the same way every time.
- Planning Acts
- Planning Regulations
- Development plans
- Council policy
What happens
Actions
Officers and AI agents take the same defined actions: validate, request, route, decide. Every one is logged.
- Validate
- Request
- Route
- Decide
Who may
Access
Permissions follow the organisation, from Secretary General to clerical officer. The same controls apply to an officer and to an agent.
- By role
- By council
- Officer and agent
- Full audit log
04 First up: planning
Catch an invalid applicationthe day it arrives.
Almost one in four applications is sent back as invalid, often weeks after it was lodged. The validation agent checks each new file against the Planning and Development Regulations and shows the officer what it found and which article applies.
The officer decides. The agent does the reading.
- 8,191
- applications were sent back as invalid across Ireland in 2025.
- 2 weeks
- is the window before lodgement in which the public notices must be published. It is one of the checks every application has to pass.
05 Sovereignty
Sovereign by default.Public data stays public property.
Location
Data stays in Ireland
Every record is stored and processed on Irish soil.
Hosting
Irish-hosted
Run in an Irish facility, or inside your own environment where you need it.
Models
Models are swappable
No tie to one AI provider. Change the model and keep the record.
Audit
Every action is logged
Each agent runs under an officer’s access, and the log shows who ran what.
06 Team
Built in Ireland,for Ireland.
Two engineers from University College Dublin, building the record Irish government runs on.
Theo Staunton
Electronic Engineering, University College Dublin
Vishal Tutte
Computer Science, University College Dublin