Planning Dublin has been an exceptionally difficult task, it seems. The planning authority, the Dublin Corporation, has had little power to promote positive developments, and is often burdened by its highly democratic structure.  Developments can be subject to lengthy appeals processes, including 3rd party appeals, so that both positive and negative development is slow in taking place.  In addition, the rights of private property established in the Irish constitution usually outweigh any influence the Dublin Corporation has on controlling development.  To make matters worse, the Irish economy has historically been sluggish, and the corporation is inadequately funded.  The planning bureaucracy has been largely unable to address the city’s major issues such as the deterioration of historic structures and massive congestion.  While the city was blessed with a charming street pattern and housing stock, the demands of the changing economy have led to much street widening and the loss of older Georgian structures because the private sector has had no requirement or incentive to plan for the long term.  There is free on-street parking in Dublin’s central business district, and ample parking off of the widened streets throughout the city further encourages auto use in a city that has relied on buses for public transit in the central city.  Even with all of the allotted parking, 40% of all cars parked in Dublin are likely to be illegally parked, and parking rules are generally unenforced.  The planning corporation has not been able to stop the private sector from building the environment to cater to the car.

Preservation and maintenance of buildings, historic or not, was not a legal requirement in Dublin until the early 1990s.  Struggling entrepreneurs could buy old Georgian buildings very cheaply, expose them to the elements, and wait for the local authorities to order their demolition (sometimes they collapsed on their own before that) so that they could develop the site (inefficiently) and turn a tidy profit. Most of the new developments through the 1980s were built on the cheap in the modernist concrete exterior style and are universally ugly. The Dublin Corporation's stringent building codes have encouraged this type of development. The charming Georgian structures that remain often do so in the shadow of hulking concrete eyesores. An ironic fortune for the state of planning in Dublin is that because of the lack of industrialization in the city, few brownfields or ex-industrial lands lay empty.  Most of Dublin’s industry was initially developed near the periphery, in proximity to social housing estates.  Recently, thanks to the current Irish economic boom, the old Custom House Docks on the Liffey have been redeveloped into the International Financial Services Center, which is now the largest employment site in Dublin.  This development followed years of debate while the old docks stood unused, however.  Commercial development has also risen in the last few years as well.  Temple Bar is a large entertainment development near the south bank of the Liffey which attracts many tourists.  The amenity of Dublin’s charming central area has fueled the private sector’s urge to develop it, and the need for the planning authority to promote development within the city has subsided.  However, the lack of commercial space in Dublin’s western new towns and the rising property values throughout the city has placed the pressure on the corporation to ensure equal development and protect neighborhoods in danger of rapid gentrification.  These new problems are likely a welcome change for a city that has historically been economically out of luck.

This link leads to a far better clickable map of Dublin today than one I could provide.  It's actually a tourist map, but there are pictures of many interesting sites that demonstrate Irish planning if you keep clicking. Click here to continue