Mick Clifford: Nothing to see here? The troubling conclusion of the An Bord Pleanála scandal

An Bord Pleanála’s final inquiry whitewashes malpractice allegations, rewriting history and raising troubling questions about accountability

The former deputy chairman of An Bord Pleanála, Paul Hyde, was prosecuted for failing to declare his interests. Picture: Dan Linehan

Did it happen at all? At a time when recent history is being rewritten by Donald Trump, one might well ask whether events from two years ago in this jurisdiction require revisiting.

Were we all imagining that An Bord Pleanála appeared to be mired in multiple allegations of malpractice?

Certainly, according to the latest — and final — report on these matters, nobody is really responsible for anything that might have occurred.

So maybe it didn’t happen at all. Maybe we should, as so often we’re instructed to, simply move along because there is nothing to see here.

An Bord Pleanála yesterday issued a statement about the completion of the mother of all the inquiries into the board’s year of living dangerously, 2022. 

In March and April of that year, allegations of malpractice came thick and fast

The allegations initially centred on the deputy chairman, Paul Hyde. The minister for housing appointed a senior counsel, Remy Farrell, to investigate. His report was never published. In July 2022, Hyde resigned.

He was prosecuted last year for failing to declare interests, and received a prison sentence which was suspended on appeal.

By the time of Hyde’s resignation, the chairman of An Bord Pleanála, Dave Walsh, had asked three management personnel in the organisation to review 300 files to check whether the allegations had any substance.

They completed their task in five months. Mr Walsh said he would not be publishing the review.

A few weeks after the review was completed, the Irish Examiner obtained a copy.

Among its findings were:

• A romantic relationship could have impacted decisions at An Bord Pleanála or given rise to allegations of bias;
• Cases where the planning applicant or appellant were well known to a board member or a senior staff member involved in case;
• Files allocated to and handled by board members in locations from which those members had previously indicated they should be excluded;
• Inspectors’ reports changed “in substantive ways” after intervention from board members;
• Changes in some of these inspectors’ reports not noted, therefore leaving no trace of changes;
• And 147 cases in which two-member boards decided on telecommunications masts against long standing policy.

A week after the publication in the Irish Examiner, Mr Walsh took early retirement.

There were also a number of court challenges to do with housing developments and mast installations as a result of the allegations.

Further investigations into policy and practice were undertaken by the Office of the Planning Regulator.

Ultimately, the Government decided to rebrand the board

It will officially transmogrify into An Coimisiún Pleanála in a few months time.

In January 2023, senior counsel Lorna Lynch was appointed to investigate the allegations of malpractice as outlined in the internal review.

The terms of reference for the inquiry were to determine whether anything occurred that would necessitate referral to the minister — including misbehaviour by a board member or for disciplinary action for an employee.

Ms Lynch completed her report in July 2024. She received a fee of €104,000, from a total cost of €240,000, for the inquiry.

Report findings

Further legal wrangling ensued over the next six months until yesterday — when the current chairman, Peter Mullan, issued a statement saying the report would not be published on legal advice. He did outline some of Ms Lynch’s findings. Chief among them was that none of the issues, bar the one for which Hyde was prosecuted, would have merited referral for misbehaviour or disciplinary action.

What does emerge is a scenario in which an internal review detailed a whole raft of instances of malpractice — some of it very serious — while the Lynch report concludes that effectively nothing occurred which would merit any kind of sanction.

How can both be correct?

When asked whether he accepts that the allegations had substance, Mr Mullan yesterday told the Irish Examiner that what he does accept is the bone fides of those who made the allegations.

“The internal review was intended for the [then] chair of the organisation and not to be published,” he says.

“It shouldn’t have been leaked. Now many of those allegations have been clearly investigated by Lorna Lynch.

“She has engaged with witnesses, she has looked at the files, and come to her conclusions.”

His contention that the real problem was the leaking of the review is interesting. If the details of the review hadn’t been published in the Irish Examiner, the official history could now be written that — despite the whole upheaval — no malpractice of significance had occurred as the Lynch report now sets out. 

We could have put it all down to a flight of the imagination, a trick of the light, a crazed media that could be filed away under fake news. Mr Trump would have been proud of such a rewriting of history.