Candidate seeks inquiry into handling of complaint

A local election candidate has called for an inquiry into the manner in which the ombudsman’s office handled his complaint against Limerick County Council.

Businessman Sean O’Mahony, who is standing as an independent in Newcastlewest, Co Limerick, has secured the support of several TDs, senators and councillors for his call.

Mr O’Mahony, a native of the Killarney area, Co Kerry, already sought a review of the ombudsman’s first investigation into the council’s handling of a planning issue and its decision in 2009 to refuse him planning for a housing development.

He had applied for planning permission for 10 houses and a temporary sewage treatment plant on a 55-acre farm he had purchased at Ardagh, Newcastlewest. He claimed he would not have gone to the expense of lodging a planning application if he had been given correct information at pre-planning meetings with the council.

“I should have been informed at a pre-planning meeting that the Limerick County Development Plan did not allow for temporary treatment plants,” he stated.

The ombudsman did not uphold the complaint.

Now, in a letter to Sinn Féin TD Martin Ferris, ombudsman Peter Tyndall said he had personally reviewed the files and, while he had found “some failings” on the council’s part, which could and should have done things differently, these did not constitute significant maladministration.

Mr Tyndall added the failings “did not give rise to the adverse effect that merited the redress of a significant sum of money which the complainant sought”.

“In short, it was and remains our view that the decision not to award planning permission would not have differed if the administrative failings identified had not occurred,” he wrote.

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