Mick Clifford: What now for An Bord Pleanála after losing its chair and deputy chair?
Dave Walsh did oversee the organisation during a time in which it now appears to have lost its way through malpractice and misgovernance by a small number of individuals.
For a while there it looked as if Dave Walsh may have weathered the storm.
Over a period of months, leading up to the summer, a series of revelations about malpractice and misgovernance in An Bord Pleanála had tumbled out in the media.
The Ditch website pulled a thread in late March over a conflict of interest involving the deputy chair Paul Hyde who had ruled on a planning application for a housing development near lands in which he and his family had an interest.
Over the following weeks and months issues around the composition of decision-making panels, a high incidence of overruling inspectors’ reports, interference in inspectors’ reports, and board members deciding on cases close to their own homes all appeared in the media.
Many, but by no means all, of these matters centred around Mr Hyde.
Through it all, Mr Walsh continued as chairperson of the board, where he had been since 2017.
In May, he commissioned an internal review to examine all of the allegations that had appeared in the media.
This review included the chief officer of An Bord Pleanála, the director of corporate affairs, and the head of HR.
The Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien appointed senior counsel, Remi Farrell, to a separate investigation of the issues concerning Mr Hyde.
He reported in July and his report was forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
It remains to be seen whether Mr Hyde will face criminal charges. There the matter appeared to rest.
In September, the Office of the Planning Regulator published its review of An Bord Pleanála which highlighted areas of concern similar to those which had appeared in the media.
The minister announced a blueprint for the way forward.
It looked as if all the dark clouds were disappearing in the rearview mirror with sunny uplands on the horizon.
Two weeks ago, the much-delayed internal review was completed.
It examined 300 files from the last four years to check for the kind of malpractice that had been reported in the .
For the greatest part, the review confirmed all the media stories and also unearthed a few new concerns.
These included incidents of inspectors being pressurised to change reports before they were presented to deciding boards.
This practice would be similar, for instance, to a judge having a quiet word with a garda outside of court about the evidence the garda was to present in court.
The review also noted that it had been informed of a “romantic relationship” in the organisation that may have impacted board decisions and the chain of reporting.
And there was the detail that Mr Walsh had commissioned an inquiry into allegations of a conflict of interest on the part of the Director of Planning, Rachel Kenny.
This inquiry was conducted by a HR firm in a very short space of time and concluded that Ms Kenny had “no case to answer”, and that the problem had been “materially inaccurate reporting” in the media.
Strangely, the media outlet in question, The Ditch website, has never been contacted to point out the alleged inaccuracies, either at the time of its reporting or since.
All of that was supposed to remain behind closed doors in the internal review.
The managed to obtain a copy of the review and began publishing details on October 24.
The latest piece written on the issue, centred on Mr Walsh’s handling of the inquiry into Ms Kenny, appeared on the website at 6am yesterday.
The piece also raised questions for the Minister for Housing in terms of his knowledge of this inquiry and how it was conducted.
And we reported that the union representing inspectors and other staff, Fórsa, had written to Mr Walsh demanding that the review be published, and stating that its members “no longer have confidence in specific members of management who may be acting to protect their own positions or the position of certain individuals at the expense of the organisation.”
Within hours of the publication of these stories, Mr Walsh issued his surprise statement that he was leaving his post.
None of the allegations of malpractice reported in the media, and confirmed in the internal review, concerned Mr Walsh personally.
People who have worked with him in both his previous role in the Department of Housing and in An Bord Pleanála testified to his personal qualities and attributes.
He was not authoritarian in his stewardship. He did not generate resentment among staff and was considered by many to be what is colloquially described as “a decent man”.
He did, however, oversee the organisation during a time in which it now appears to have lost its way through malpractice and misgovernance by a small number of individuals.
Some have made comparisons with his immediate predecessor, Mary Kelly, who was described as having run a “tight ship” at the board.
Unfortunately, Mr Walsh’s final public utterance before yesterday spoke volumes about priorities.
On Tuesday, he updated a previous statement to note that he had ordered a “forensic examination” of IT systems in the board to find where the got its leak of the internal review and the result “conclusively rules out any unauthorised release of the document from within the organisation.”
The provenance of the leak, it would appear, was the priority over the seriousness of what it contained.
Political responsibility also accrues for the problems that beset Mr Walsh and An Bord Pleanála. His tenure as chair coincided with the introduction of the Strategic Housing Development (SHD) process in 2018.
This was ostensibly designed to speed up planning, had been lobbied for by the property development industry, and involved bypassing local authorities and applying for planning directly to the board.
The initiative, which has been something of a disaster, was abandoned by the current minister.
Over two-thirds of the permissions obtained under SHD have not progressed to building and increasingly community groups and individuals challenged permissions granted by the board.
The result has been a ballooning of legal costs, rising from €4m in 2019 to €8.2m in 2020 and falling back slightly last year to €7.7m.
This year alone, An Bord Pleanála has conceded 29 legal cases – most of which involve SHDs – so far, effectively admitting before a court hearing that they got it wrong.
SHD applications featured in a raft of the issues raised around conflicts of interest and adjustments to inspectors’ reports.
Now the board faces a long road back.
A new chair and deputy chair have to be recruited, and issues around the inquiry into the Director of Planning still need further scrutiny.
Above all, public confidence must be won back, particularly at a time when this organ of State has to play a vital role in the ongoing housing crisis.
