Planning Permission for our House in Ireland

Once we decided to build the house - we first had to get a design for the house and then submit it to the County Council for permission to build. Working out the house design was a slow iterative process. Trying things out - different room sizes and layouts. Most of the original attempts were for a bungalow - single storey. But the size of the site is quite narrow and we couldn't make it very wide. Also we tried to keep it simple - a rectangle with no bays or anything like that. This was partly to keep cost down and partly just to keep it simple - We ended up with a dormer bungalow design. We had to go upwards to get the space we wanted and keep the outside space too.

Soil tests also had to be done to see how good or bad the percolation was. This is needed because the house is out in a rural area and there is no sewage system - so we will need a septic tank or some sort of waste treatment system. The type of soil has a big part to play in what you end up getting. As it happens our soil is very sandy and water soaks through it very well - too well - so we need a waste treatment system. More about that another day!
The planning permission people got back to us after about 9 or 10 weeks with some requests for further information. We needed letters from the ESB - (electricity supply board) to say they would move the wires above the site if needed. We also needed written permission from the owners of the adjacent fields - allowing us to adjust boundary heights and get onto their land if we needed to do so. A commissioner of oaths had to witness these. If you are applying for planning permission in Ireland - I would advise involving the ESB early on. They were pretty slow in responding and lost letters and forms that I sent and didn't return phone calls.
After the further info was submitted we waited another 5 weeks or so to be told we had permission subject to having a comprehansive landscape plan - plus 18 other conditions to do with boundary walls and distances from roads etc. The whole process took from March 9th 2004 to September 2004. Some people have told us that we were done quickly! It could have been quicker - but then again it could have been worse.