64 court cases linked to Hyde decisions cost An Bord Pleanála €5.2m

Former deputy chair of An Bord Pleanála, Paul Hyde.

The former deputy chair of An Bord Pleanala Paul Hyde voted on planning applications which have since cost €5.2m linked to 64 court cases which were either lost or conceded.

The State’s embattled planning authority spent €11.7m on its own costs and those of opposing parties over a four-year period, according to new data seen by the Irish Examiner.

Mr Hyde was involved in the decisions leading to 64 out of the 116 legal cases ultimately lost or conceded by the board in that period.

Legal costs at An Bord Pleanála [ABP] have spiralled in recent years to just under half the body’s entire annual budget of €18.6m.

Of the 116 cases identified by ABP as having been conceded or lost between 2018 and 2022, 54 were lost and 62 conceded.

The costs of cases that were defended and ultimately lost were more than twice as high as those ABP conceded - €8.1m versus €3.6m respectively.

Many of the cases involve the same planning decision having been litigated by multiple separate third parties – such as a series of strategic housing decisions at St Paul’s in Raheny, Dublin, which saw ABP lose or concede 9 cases at a total cost of €744,000.

The largest cost incurred was for a case involving a prospective windfarm at Carrignadoura in Cork – a case ultimately lost by the board and fully settled at a cost of €531,000. No record exists of the board meeting which led to the initial decision on Carrignadoura.

In fact the top three cases in terms of costs all involved wind farms. The fourth largest, costing €473,605, resulted from a case taken against the controversial waste-to-energy incinerator at Ringaskiddy.

The overall cost of the 116 cases is likely to be considerably higher than the €11.7m incurred by ABP to date, as the other side's costs have yet to be settled in 62 of the actions.

Mr Hyde, who stepped down from his role in May and formally resigned from it in July of this year amid allegations of potential conflicts of interest in his decision-making, is one of 16 board members who voted on decisions leading to cases subsequently lost by ABP in the courts during that time.

Mr Hyde has denied any wrongdoing.

The report of an investigation into some of his decisions – including the granting of permission for an extension to his sister-in-law's house in Dublin – was last month referred to the gardaí and the Director of Public Prosecutions.

The figure of €5.2m in legal costs covering cases decided by Mr Hyde is the highest linked to any ABP member – however he is closely followed by Michelle Fagan, who voted on decisions later involved in 58 legal cases over the four-year period at a cost of €4.9m.

Ms Fagan and Mr Hyde voted - often as a two-person board when ABP’s best practice board size is three - on an overwhelming majority of cases involving telecommunications masts over a two-year period up to mid-2022.

One such case, involving an application for a 42-metre telecommunications structure in Athy, Co Kildare, was conceded in court at an overall settled cost of €174,000.

Ms Fagan remains a board member, and voted on the approval of 9 strategic housing developments in the two months after Mr Hyde stepped down from his role “without prejudice” in May.

Terry Prendergast, who stepped down from the board in August 2021, was involved in decisions which resulted in 48 cases at a cost of €4.6m during her four-year term.

It emerged last month that during her tenure Ms Prendergast had voted on at least six planning applications in the south Dublin area in which she lives, one of them for an extension to a tennis club located 200 metres from her home.

Current chair of ABP Dave Walsh meanwhile was involved in decisions involving legal actions that cost in total €1.9m.