Planning inquiry to focus on councillors’ actions

ENVIRONMENT Minister John Gormley’s planning inquiry will focus on the involvement of councillors in pre-planning decisions and their relationship with local planning offices over the past two years.

The Irish Examiner has learned that while the review is being used to ensure local authority structures can cope with the requirements of the new Planning Bill, a series of questions surrounding practices at city and county councils will also be examined.

It is understood concerns have been raised over planning issues at Cork City Council, Cork County Council, Dublin City Council, Galway County Council, Meath County Council and Carlow County Council, all of which are now under review.

They are believed to include:

* The “liaison mechanisms” between councillors and local planning offices in Cork County Council.

* The pre-planning consultation process in Cork City Council.

* Adherence to development plans and corporate governance in Dublin city, Meath county, Galway county and Carlow county councils.

A specific concern which led to a complaint to Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly in 2008 is understood to be among the reasons why Cork City Council is included in the review. The complaint was made by Green Party member Mick Murphy, who could not locate the minutes of a pre-planning meeting from December 2007 at the local planning office in June 2008.

Under existing legislation, Mr Gormley is barred from intervening in any planning decisions.

However, outside its primary objective, the review will examine the accountability, transparency and adherence to the national spatial strategy and planning guidelines in a system which currently leads to 8,000 decision complaints every year.

As such, if any concerns are raised about specific decisions – including the possibility of corruption – further investigations will be possible.

The review, to be conducted by a team of international planning experts to prevent any conflict of interest, will focus specifically on planning decisions over the past two years.

While it may be extended, it is initially restricted to the six named local authorities, which have four weeks to respond to the Department of Environment.

“The measure I’m introducing is to look at the consistency of decision making and to see for example if local authorities are adhering to development plans,” Mr Gormley told RTÉ.

When asked if the planning review has been created to address corruption concerns, he added: “That’s a very loaded word… I think we have to be extremely careful not to prejudice in any way the outcome of these inquiries.

“We have to look at why exactly they [local authorities] made these decisions and there could be legitimate reasons for that.”

All six of the councils being examined under the review said they were unaware of it until media coverage yesterday morning.

In particular, Cork City Manager, Joe Gavin, and Cork County Manager, Martin Riordan, voiced their anger over the fact they had not been contacted before the media.

However, it is understood officials at the Department of Environment spoke to Mr Riordan about the issue last Thursday and attempted to contact Mr Gavin on Monday.