Mick Clifford: Who will shout stop on new planning laws?
Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien wants to rush through provision for him to directly appoint members to an expanded board of 15 members. Picture: Gareth Chaney/ Collins
Christmas is a great time to rush through laws that might cause a bit of grief. Everybody, including the media, is distracted. We all, to some extent, have gate fever. It is in such an atmosphere that Housing Minister Darragh O’Brien is introducing legislation that could further damage the reputation of An Bord Pleanála and there is no sign that anything is being done to stop it.
The Planning and Development and Foreshore Bill is currently going through the Oireachtas, which is scheduled to pass it before the Christmas break.
One of the amendments included is to provide for the appointment of an interim chair to An Bord Pleanála. There is indeed an urgency about such an appointment.
In October, the chair of ABP Dave Walsh suddenly took early retirement. He did so following a week of revelations in the about the damning contents of a confidential internal review.
The board has no deputy chair, as that last person to hold that office, Paul Hyde, resigned last July under the weight of a welter of controversies. There have been no appointments to the board in the last year when positions fell vacant largely because of the controversies that have appeared in the media.
Currently, there are only four operational members from a normal complement of nine. Quite obviously, the first thing that needs to be done is securing a captain to the ship that is being tossed around on the high seas.
In November, Mr O’Brien announced that Oonagh Buckley would take up the role of interim chairperson. She has extensive experience across Government departments, including a stint working on planning in the old Department of the Environment. All that remains is the legislative footing to allow her start in the job.
The problem is that Mr O’Brien is not stopping there. In addition to a law appointing the interim chair, he wants to rush through provision for him to directly appoint members to an expanded board of 15 members.
These appointments would be nominally temporary but could last for up to two years. And the legislation specifies that these appointments will be either serving of former civil servants or “established public servants in State agencies or employees of the board… who is, in the opinion of the minister, a suitably qualified person on a temporary basis”.
The length of the temporary contract is specified at 12 months with the possibility of an extension for another year.
This is back to the future stuff. When ABP was set up in 1977, the minister of the day was tasked with appointing board members. Pretty soon it became apparent this system defeated the purpose of removing the minister from planning decisions.
On a few occasions, outgoing Fianna Fáil ministers stuffed the board with favoured appointments, making a joke of the notion of independence. In 1983, the environment minister Dick Spring brought in new legislation to remove the minister from the process.
“The way in which the power of appointment of ordinary members has, in practice, been used in recent times has led to a diminution in public confidence in the appeals system,” Spring told the Dáil when introducing the bill.
“In particular, the circumstances surrounding some appointments, and especially their timing, seriously affected the general public’s perception of the board as an independent and unbiased tribunal.”
A system of nominations from business, union and wider society bodies was introduced. That wasn’t perfect and could well have been tweaked but now O’Brien wants to throw it out. His appointments will be temporary, but a lot will be happening in planning in the next two years which could have a huge impact.
And what if there is an election? Will a new minister in a new government have the right to make further temporary appointments?
Not just that, but these appointments will most likely be from the Department of Housing, to which they will return when their term is up. So they are expected to sit on an independent planning board and rule without fear or favour with the prospect of returning to work in Government thereafter.
The heritage body Taisce and the Irish Environmental Network have expressed alarm at the legislation. In the Seanad last week, a succession of independent and opposition senators called for it to be halted or adjusted. Independent Senator Alice Mary Higgins described it as a “power grab”.
“The minister could appoint persons for temporary periods specifically to deal with categories of applications,” she said. “That brings the independence of the board into question.”
She suggested amendments to the appointment system through the nominating bodies could be brought in to restore credibility to that process. The minister, it would appear, is having none of it.
Public confidence in An Bord Pleanála as an independent arbiter has been shattered as a result of the numerous issues that have been highlighted in the media and subsequently in an internal damning report. Darragh O’Brien is on record as saying it that such confidence must be restored.
Moving the system of appointments closer to the minister of the day is most certainly not going to do that.
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