daveg said:
Everything in a 20KM band around Galway will get this clause.
The clause you mention is based on a restriction on new planning applications within 15km (not 20KM) calculated (by the planners) in a dead straight line from the NE Corner of Eyre Square near County Bulidings...to be precise . I would have thought that Abbey was outside that limit by a
very long shot, I'd say Ballyglunin is too and Turloughmore and even Lackagh.
Said plan is 700k in size here
http://www.galwaycoco.ie/planning/developmentplan/Draft 12795.pdf
I refer you to policy objective 92 ...yes it says 'by road' but the planners ignore their own plan as much as possible because they do not give a feck and use straight lines instead

so 15km by road may easily have become 20km as the crow flies in the planning office because the planners chose to misread their own stated plan .
You have a valid ground for appeal because of that but I would get them to confirm they applied 20km IN WRITING first .
Nevertheless you are outside that by any measure and It
should not have been applied to you for that reason is what I think. Given my dealings with Galway planners , no disrespect to yours, they probably will find another reason why it applies but you are not within that radius . I must confess that with some noble exceptions I have found Galways
planners to be the most mendacious , useless, visionless, lying , rude, ignorant bunch of corrupt sleeveens I have ever come across in the entire Civil Service......ever .
Of course I live inside that 15km by road limit

and have seen the value of Tonka Towers shoot up as a direct consequence but thats between I and my bank managers.