Irelands 4 star dire hotels ??

I thought of the Inchydoney Island Hotel when I read this.

A massive kip in a beauty spot. Don’t know how it got planning permission.

The building and apartments beside have a creepy familiarity about them. They look like half the one-off houses built in the last 10 years around the country, only bigger. Even the interiors, the coving , the skirting boards, the carpets, the bathrooms all seem to come from the same builders provider. A lot of pale yellow paint used.

Swimming pool’s nice though.

edit: here’s a photo
http://www.rems.ie/images/Inchydoney.jpg

The key point in this, as was pointed out in the Irish Times article yesterday, is tax incentives. And, by extension, under-resourced planning authorities that were unable to assess adequately many of the proposals due to lack of staff.
But who grants the stars? Is it just a case of ticking enough boxes on a sheet to get the required classification? “Does it look like one of Saddam’s/Ceausescu’s palaces? Slap on an extra star!”