'Serial' objectors blocking housing plans to extract money from developers
Property Developer David Hogan. Picture: RTÉ Investigates
Two brothers, operating as environmental non-governmental organisations (NGOs), are systematically objecting to planning applications in order to extract money from developers, an RTÉ documentary will reveal on Monday night.
The two brothers, who have gained a reputation as "serial objectors", have lodged multiple objections to residential and commercial developments across the country, and as a result, multimillion euro projects have been put on hold.
will follow the journey of several developers who have come up against these men and found themselves out of time, out of options and out of pocket.
In November 2022, developer David Hogan was granted planning permission to build 74 houses, allowing him to expand his development Watergrasshill in Co Cork, where there is big demand for such starter homes.
The brothers submitted an appeal under the name of an environmental group called An Lucht Inbhuanaithe, “The Sustainable People.” Mr Hogan had concerns about the group’s motivations.
At a meeting with one of the brothers, Mr Hogan tried to address the environmental issues raised in the appeal but the conversation turned from environmental concerns to money.
Mr Hogan said one of the men told him: "In the event of the appeal being withdrawn, what about my costs?
"And he says, if you have a proposal to make, I will be happy to listen.
"I had said to him that I would wait, I could afford to wait. And he kind of leaned in towards me and he said, well, you're in a lot better position than most of the guys I'm dealing with."
It is now almost 11 months since his planning permission to build 74 houses in Cork was appealed by the two men.
Mr Hogan has plenty of potential buyers for his development, but he is continuing to refuse to pay the two men to withdraw their appeal, so he must wait for the planning appeals board to adjudicate on the case.
In another case, a developer paid them, and was also asked by them for sites in that development, in return for them withdrawing their appeal against a significant residential development.
The agreement gives one of the men an option to buy sites in the housing development for just €1,000 each when the sites were considered to be worth up to €50,000 each at the time.
The documentary will show how the men were paid more than €50,000 in return for a planning appeal being withdrawn.
Since 2000, An Bord Pleanála also has the power to dismiss financially motivated appeals.
However, according to Freedom of Information requests, there has not been a single appeal dismissed on these grounds.
The two brothers have been increasingly prolific in submitting planning objections to housing and commercial developments around the country.
These objections have been described as mischievous and financially motivated by several planning experts.
The brothers frequently describe themselves as environmental consultants with NGOs which are typically not-for-profit advocacy groups although, RTÉ Investigates could find no record of them being registered with the charities regulator or the companies registration office. Nor could they find any online presence explaining the group’s goals.
As there are no state regulations for NGOs at present, there is no obligation for them to do any of these things.
Sadhbh O’Neill, Environmental Lecturer & Activist said: "What makes me so angry is that I know all the organisations that I've worked with who put so much time and effort and voluntary hours into building their organisations, establishing codes of governance and practise, and complying with all of those rules in order to be able to present themselves as legitimate environmental organisations representing the public interest. And these individuals claim to have environmental concerns, but these are clearly nothing to do with what's going on."
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