Mick Clifford: Long road to restore confidence in An Bord Pleanála 

Apart from Paul Hyde, it has now emerged that issues have arisen in relation to at least one member of staff at An Bord Pleanála — but there are no plans to publish the internal report into the matter.

The offices of An Bord Pleanála in Dublin. Picture: Niall Carson

Last month, Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien pointed to a new way forward for An Bord Pleanála. 

He set out a plan designed to see the planning board back on the road to restoring public confidence. 

Nobody said it explicitly, but it was as if a bit of window dressing was required to get people to once more have faith in this vital institution of the State. 

Sure, wasn’t Paul Hyde, the former deputy chairman, gone, and with him all the woes that had been dragged into the public domain? 

Move along, nothing more to see here.

Former An Bord Pleanála deputy chairman Paul Hyde.

The internal report completed last week in An Bord Pleanála (ABP) would beg to differ. 

The report was commissioned in the wake of controversies over Mr Hyde, but it examined a whole raft of issues that may have arisen in the operations of ABP.

What amounts to a catalogue of misgovernance or malpractice suggests that rather than the woes being attributable to one individual, the culture of the organisation had drifted far from its procedural and legislative anchors.

Today the Irish Examiner reports issues that have arisen in relation to at least one member of staff at ABP. 

For the greater part, most of the controversies to emerge in the last six months concerned board members, how they sat in rulings and, in some cases, how they were appointed. 

Now we are finding out that major issues also apply to some elements of the staff.

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The report notes that conflict of interest issues have arisen in relation to a staff member. 

The allegation is that a person “well known” to a staff member was part of a team applying for planning in a case where the staff member was involved. 

There is also an allegation that the staff member and this person both attended a meeting for their respective organisations.

However, the report does not go into detail on the matter as, it says, a separate process has been commissioned to investigate it. 

Unnamed separate inquiry

This is the first time that there has been any report of another investigation into issues of malpractice at the board. 

The report doesn’t state whether an external body or individual is conducting this investigation, as per, for example, the inquiry by senior counsel Remi Farrell that was conducted into Mr Hyde’s alleged conflicts of interest. 

If the Irish Examiner was not in a position to report on this unnamed separate inquiry, nobody outside ABP — and presumably most within the organisation — would even know that it existed. 

A request to ABP for information on this process was not addressed in a general reply.

What is at issue is extremely serious. 

When the board was first established in 1977, the relevant legislation included provisions for the board members and staff to positively avoid any conflict of interest. 

This was central to the whole ethos of the organisation. 

The legislation was later updated and is currently contained in Section 148 of the Planning and Development Act 2000. 

The law provides that a breach of this legislation will invite the possibility of prosecution for a criminal offence.

That is precisely what Mr Hyde was subjected to following an investigation by the senior counsel Mr Farrell. 

The matter was investigated by the gardaí and is now with the Director of Public Prosecutions.

Lack of transparency

In the case of the alleged conflict by a staff member in the internal report, it is unclear whether, even if substantiated, the matter would require investigation by the gardaí.

As of yet, there are no plans to publish the internal report, and questions arise as to why not. 

A spokesperson for An Bord Pleanála said the chairman is studying the report and will decide in consultation with legal advice whether or not to publish it. 

But even if the report is not published, some explanation must surely be forthcoming on what kind of inquiry is being conducted into what amounts to a serious allegation of a conflict of interest.

If this is an example of transparency in action by An Bord Pleanála, then the road back to public confidence is going to be long and arduous, and there is no guarantee that the destination will be eventually reached.