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    Get moving on that social housing

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    Homelessness was always a winter story and affected individuals only. Now it’s an all-year narrative and the homeless are no longer just isolated individuals -although they are still there – but families, in all their forms and colour. Our recent research for the Housing Agency report, ‘Family experiences of path- ways into homelessness – the families’perspective’, sheds some light on the causes,consequences and features of these unwelcome developments. The research was basedon interviews with a sample of 30 families,including a mixture of family types (couples and one-parent households with children of differing ages, as well as families from minority – Traveller and migrant – backgrounds). The human story was com- pelling. Both of us, ‘seasoned’ researchers long involved in the homeless field, were shocked by the conditions and circumstances in which the families found themselves. Some were homeless for months, but for others it was years. We met families living for months in one room of a hotel. Others lived in damp basements and rooms, with heat turned on for only a few hours a day. Most of the families we met no longer had possessions, apart from those they could put in a suitcase. They were broke, having used up whatever savings they had. Parents were distressed, despairing, humiliated – often eg under curfew – but absolutely determined to ensure their children survived the experience. At a policy level there were clear findings. Almost all the families had lived in private rented accommodation: none were dispossessed mortgage-holders. Many had been in private rented accommodation that they liked, some in the same home, for long periods, whilst others moved around frequently.The problem was that this time, when they left or were evicted (the euphemistic term is ‘issued with a Notice of Termination’), they could not find an affordable alternative. They could not get back in. They typically called prospective landlords, or called door-to-door, 50, 60 times only to find the accommodation already gone, or, more likely, to be assailed with “no rent allowance here”. For some, leaving or being evicted was a sudden and brutal process: eg a violent ex-partner turning up and causing trouble, a ratinvasion or the roof falling in. For the majority, though their departure was the landlord deciding to get more rent from tenants. For tenants told to leave, the one thing theyneeded more than anything else was a reference for the next landlord, so they did not argue. Campaigns for tenants to be ‘better informed’ of their ‘rights’, when they have almost none, overlook the inequality of power. With little new housing built in recent years and a dearth of social housing, which can be traced to 1987, a previous austerity period and its cuts in spending on local authority housing, our rising population has put more pressure on accommodation. The bottom of the private rental market gets ‘squeezed’, and those on low incomes are squeezed out. As demand rises, landlords know that they can charge more. Rents move higher and higher above the rent supplement levels that the Department of Social Protection pays, putting them out of reach of those on low incomes. The introduction of the Homeless Housing Assistance Payment (HAP) which permits a 20% increase in rent supplement marks a welcome recognition that rent supplement levels are no longer adequate. The homeless families to whom we spoke had many ideas on how to solve the homelessness crisis, including the opening up of boarded-up local authority homes. For them(and we should listen), local authority accommodation was the ultimate solution, offering security, acceptable standards and affordable rent. The Social Housing Strategy 2020 – a six-year plan to address social-housing needs – commits to the provision of 35,000 new social-housing units, over half (18,000 units) of which are due to come on stream by the end of 2017, with the remainder (17,000 units) scheduled for completion by the end of 2020 at a cost of €3.8bn.While the requirement is clearly immediate, a useful additional measure has been the introduction of a Ministerial direction which requires named local authorities to allocate up to half of available social housing units to homeless (and other special needs) households for the first six months of 2015. Notably, no-one we spoke to expected to get back to private rented accommodation, ever. Kathy Walsh and Brian Harvey Kathy Walsh is Director of KW Research and Associates Ltd, and an experienced social researcher and strategic thinker with expertise in equality and integration.

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    Red Hand

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    NIance For a long time the two issues that appeared to enjoy cross-party support in Northern Ireland (apart from horror of bauble-free direct rule) were one-off housing and visceral anti-abortionism. Now Sinn Fein appears to take a more nuanced approach to abortion. As do the courts. The Belfast High Court has ruled that abortion legislation in Northern Ireland is in breach of human rights law. Until now termination of pregnancy has only been allowed if a woman’s life was at risk or (unlike in the South) there is a permanent or serious risk to her mental or physical health. In a tragic case of foetal anencephaly, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC) had brought the case to extend abortion to cases of serious foetal malformation, rape or incest. The British 1967 Abortion Act does not apply to Northern Ireland. Northern Ireland’s Attorney General John Larkin said in a brief statement that he was “profoundly disappointed” by the decision and was “considering the grounds for appeal”. In his ruling, Judge Horner said women who were the victims of sexual crime and cases of fatal foetal abnormality were entitled to exemptions in the law. He said that the issue was unlikely to be addressed by the Northern Ireland Executive in the foreseeable future, and that Northern Ireland citizens were entitled to “have their [European Convention on Human] rights protected by the courts”. In early 2015, Sinn Féin effectively vetoed efforts in the Northern Ireland Assembly to prevent the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast from performing abortions. The party whip, Caitríona Ruane (MLA for South Down), claimed the move by the DUP’s Paul Givan and the SDLP’s Alban Maginness was “an attempt to restrict the right of a woman to obtain a termination in life-threatening circumstances”. Storey-telling The deal between the DUP and Sinn Féin to save the North’s Executive has allowed the Westminster Parliament to vote through cuts for the North, including to Social Welfare. It is, however, promised that £345 million will be put aside for the next four years to top up payments for claimants who lose out in the changes. However, Green Party Assembly member Steven Agnew has derided Social Development Minister Mervyn Storey who, in a written answer, told Agnew that the Social Security Agency paid out approximately £80m per year in its Discretionary Fund over the last four years and that this fund would be redeployed for Social Welfare. In effect, protection seems to be robbing one set of claimants to pay another. Agnew said top-up money appeared to be “the renaming of an already existing budget”. robins on his way One of the biggest beasts of Northern politics, Peter Robinson, has slipped quietly into the good night of political death. Robinson was one of the toughest political scrappers going: however, the constant rumour of scandal and declining health combined to sap his vigour. Although it is rumoured Gerry Adams contributed to expediting his goodbye at end of his final question time as First Minister, the Sinn Féin Front Bench joined the DUP in giving him a standing ovation. That’s a sign of how the two parties are interdependent. Were the Northern Executive a family, their relationship is so dysfunctional social services would be sent in. However, both know they face disaster if the Executive falls. If people reflect too hard on the political extremities they might finish up voting in some moderates. They are not made whole Colm Eastwood’s defeat of uncharismatic Alasdair McDonnell in the SDLP leadership election was a sign of that party’s desperation. The Assembly election is due in May: parties very seldom dump a leader – no matter how poorly performing – so soon before an election. McDonnell’s defeat was particularly humiliating because many of the party’s ‘ABA’ (Anybody But Alasdair) tendency had walked away. The SDLP is haemorrhageing members as well as votes and Eastwood will lead the party away from its middle-class, middle-aged roots to a greener and more leftist future. When Margaret Ritchie was elected leader five years ago, 409 delegates voted. When 32-year-old Eastwood overthrew MacDonnell, only 305 did. Eastwood succeeds McDonnell, Margaret Ritchie, Mark Durkan, John Hume and Gerry Fitt, in that order. Quinn again There was little coverage in the South of the conviction of Quinn Building Products for the death of 24-year-old Fermanagh GAA star Brian Óg Maguire from head injuries in its Derrylin factory. The company, bought last year from IBRC and US bondholders by a holding company which is reinstating the exciting old Quinn regime, pleaded guilty to failing to ensure the safety of an employee and maintain work equipment. Omagh Crown Court found the company’s procedures were inadequate, and “the equipment used was defective”. The judge pointed out that the company had been convicted for the death of another worker in 1997, when it was called Sean Quinn Quarries. road to nowhere you’d know The Executive has announced it is to contribute £75m (€106.5m) to build a nine-mile stretch of dual carriageway from Ballymagorry, north of Strabane, Co Tyrone, to Newbuildings, south of Derry City. The proposed road is part of the proposed A5, from the Monaghan-Tyrone Border to Newbuildings, the North’s largest ever road project. Two years ago a judicial review overturned the decision to grant this planning permission for failure to carry out an appropriate assessment of the Rivers Foyle and Finn Special Areas of Conservation under the EU Habitats directive.. The Executive’s determination to go ahead with the dual carriageway is mysterious. No part of the existing A5 is among the North’s 50 busiest stretches of road. Options of developing the existing road were dismissed, while expanding public transport was not even considered. Case meant to be The GAA’s proposed 38,000-seater Casement Park stadium in West Belfast is enmired in a bitter planning battle. Residents feel they are being railroaded by the Corporate GAA. Anger at the proposal – and Sinn Féin’s support for it – was key to sweeping People Before Profit’s Gerry Carroll onto Belfast City

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    Wicklow again

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    Apolitical blast from the past has returned to haunt the much troubled Wicklow County Council and its former county manager, Eddie Sheehy. Former councillor and once prominent Green Party member, Deirdre de Búrca, recently learned that the Council has abandoned a Supreme Court appeal taken by Sheehy after she secured a High Court judgment in her favour in a long running zoning row. The story dates back to 2004 when de Búrca complained that Fianna Fáil councillor and solicitor, Fachtna Whittle, had breached ethics legislation when he proposed and voted for the rezoning of land near Brittas without disclosing that it was owned by a man represented by his legal practice. The ethics committee of the Council, including Sheehy and then cathaoirleach, John Byrne, considered that while Whittle had been “unwise to propose the motion he did” he had no “beneficial or pecuniary interest” in the zoning and therefore the complaint by de Búrca was “unjustified”. The then Green Party councillor challenged the decision to the High Court which decided in her favour with Judge John Hedigan ruling in 2009 that Sheehy and the Council had not dealt with the zoning and potential conflict-of-interest issues at the core of de Búrca’s complaint. He quashed their report and directed the Council to review the matter. This was not good enough for Sheehy who lodged an appeal, which has been trundling through the justice system ever since, with the Supreme Court. Following his retirement earlier this year, his successors, including acting county manager, Bryan Doyle, have decided to drop the appeal. To add insult to injury solicitors for the Council sought to impose a ‘gagging order’ on de Búrca as part of what has been described by the Wicklow Times as a “settlement” of the action which the former councillor refused to accept. This involves the Council absorbing the estimated hundreds of thousands of euro in costs accrued in the action, one of a number of legal actions Sheehy left behind when he departed earlier this year. Meanwhile, the Minister for the Environment, Alan Kelly, continues to deflect Dáil questions on the outcome of a number of inquiries into various matters involving planners, councillors and developers in the garden county during Sheehy’s tenure. These include the circumstances surrounding contracts agreed between the Council and the developers of the 1400 Charlesland residential scheme near Greystones, Sean Mulryan and Sean Dunne and their partnership company Zapi Ltd. As previously reported in Village a secret contract, providing the then high-flyers with road and other access to the previously landlocked Charlesland site for little or nothing, is under examination by department officials. The Council has insisted that the contract merely involved an ‘exchange of easements’ of six acres of its land. However, according to the agent who helped to acquire the lands, the road access deal was worth tens of millions to the developers with little or no payment in return to the Council. Before the Charlesland 200 acres site had road access it was worth €22m. Once it had planning permission with road access its value jumped tenfold – to €220m. Auctioneer Gabriel Dooley has claimed that he was present when Fianna Fáil councillor, Pat Vance, discussed maps of the planned development with Mulryan and Dunne in Dobbins restaurant in Dublin in early 2003 and offered advice on how to circumvent various planning obstacles including the objections of local members to any material contravention of the local area plan to facilitate the ambitious Charlesland scheme. Vance signed the ‘exchange of easement’ contracts along with Sheehy, the director of services, Tom Murphy and representatives for Mulryan and Dunne. Bray-based Councillor Vance has also been the subject of an ethics complaint by Dooley over failing to disclose property he acquired in the early 2000s om the town in his annual declaration of interests to the Council. A property in question at Saran Wood was sold earlier this year following publication in Villageabout the ongoing and bitter exchanges between Dooley and Vance, among others. Dooley has not been informed of the outcome of any investigation or if one has taken place. Mulryan, meanwhile, is involved with international investors and NAMA in a major residential development in Dublin’s docklands and will surely be hoping that the long-awaited departmental inquiry into the Charlesland controversy will not cause any difficulties. He may be interested to know that one of the senior official asked to deal with the various complaints from Wicklow has also recently retired which, no doubt, has delayed the investigation even further. Frank Connolly

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    Boyne Valley Chamber of Horrors.

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    The descendants of the Tuatha Dé Danaan who constructed the temples along the Boyne Valley in 3200 BC left a legacy of architecture with calendars in stone, solar and lunar maps; and triple spirals bearing witness to their spiritual, scientific and astrological culture. The temples are older than Stonehenge, the Pyramid of Giza and for that matter Homer’s ‘Iliad’ whose source was the Siege of Troy of around 1200 BC. In Irish mythology, Dagda named the Boyne after his wife Boann who was Goddess of the river known in ancient Gaelic as Bóinn. Apart from Enda Kenny, visitors wishing to visit Newgrange and Knowth should note that this is only possible by joining formal tours which leave from the Brú na Bóinne visitor centre which is located on the south bank of the river, close to the village of Donore. It is possible to view the mound at Dowth by going directly to the site but it should be noted that there is no public access to the tombs themselves. Brú na Bóinne urgently needs to overhaul and upgrade its access for visitors. Daily, there are two buses leaving Dublin at 10 a.m. and 1p.m. The 100X leaves from Custom House Quay to Drogheda where you change to the 163. The later bus is a bigger challenge with a wait of 45 minutes in Drogheda. You cannot expect to arrive at the centre until 15.10 at which time it will be nigh impossible to fit into the schedule in the May-September season, and expect to bus it back to Custom House Quay. Coach tours from Dublin are €35 upwards. Car owners and those on tour buses still encounter problems because of the archaic access policy to the sites. Dowth is not open to visitors. Its carvings include ‘The Stone of the Seven Suns’. The Drogheda Conservative (July 5th, 1856) mentioned the explosives used by the Royal Irish Academy’s 1849 ‘excavation’, a plundering expedition causing a huge crater during its work at Dowth in the nineteenth century, leaving the “beautiful tumulus literally torn to pieces. Its stones barrowed out as if it were to facilitate the dissoluting propensities of road contractors”. Knowth is currently open to the public but like Newgrange fraught in terms of actual access. The summer schedule accommodates groups of visitors up to 5.15 pm. Individuals and families are lower in the pecking order. The policy is quite stolid: “there can be no guarantee that everyone will have access to the sites” according to the official leaflet. Pre-booking is only possible through fax or the postal system, addressee: ‘Reservations’. The latter method is fittingly but frustratingly prehistoric. Stonehenge, for example, has an IT system to optimise the visitor’s experience. Not so at ‘Brú na Bóinne’ whose visitors centre which opened in 1997 uses a sticker system and an internal shuttle-bus service to the sites – a ten to fifteen minute journey away. It already offends that the centre (if necessary at all) is remote in its location. It is ‘disastrously’ situated south of the river whereas Newgrange is across the Boyne, beautifully built on a curve of the river. There is a hut on-site within metres of Newgrange where the staff corral the next group of visitors in the slow and muddled process of access while the preceding group has been shuttled ignominiously in and out. The vaunted ‘experience’ of Newgrange based on the quasi-museum at the centre cannot but fail to deliver. The exhibition meets only minimum standards, replete with predictable plastic skeletons and tiring mannequins wearing primitive raggy costumes. The miniature model of the prehistoric community is appropriate for children but has little or no appeal to adults. The biggest boast is the replica of Newgrange itself which is a filleted version of the passageway and demonstrably inferior to the original, in every imaginable way. The actual passageway is 24 metres long, slopes upwards to meet the level of the light box under which it is possible to walk, giving the effect of a prehistoric fanlight window on entering the temple. The problem with the replica is not just the phoneyness of the materials used but the crucial failure of scale. The centre with contemporary visuals, artefacts and laminated murals cumulatively does not register anything like the impact of Newgrange or Knowth. The centre offers (as consolation?) a twenty-minute DVD of the experience costing €16. It would be easy to leave this experience feeling short-changed. Depression would not be unreasonable as one headed for the fleeting bus. Decidedly, there is a school-tour atmosphere about this experience, from stickered visitors waiting for their shuttle bus to finally getting on site. It has slavishly pursued the kitsch motif of circularity in design. Spirals almost jump out at you everywhere, like attenuated hypnosis. One notorious chunk of glass in the circular glazed walls has an embedded spiral on a circular window. The restaurant is good but pricey, taking advantage of affluent and hungry quasi-hostages on the long wait to see the temples. Soft drinks, crisps and such are available but not at Lidl prices. The car park has had thefts from parked cars. Walkways outdoors are paved and fenced, as well as hedged off. There is no great incentive to go out and ramble as your shuttle bus is the central focus. There is a sense of being confined to barracks in the ever circular interiors of the centre. Outdoors at last, the centre is set in lush pastoral landscape, low on the horizon. You cross a substantial footbridge and traverse the hemmed-in pathways until reaching the shuttle park which is a small circular yard. The shuttles are slightly larger than mini-buses, taking about 20-24 persons at a time. On alighting from the shuttle you have to wait for the previous group to exit the site. You wait in a corralled area for your guide near the checkpoint hut. Released into the field before Newgrange there are further delays as the guide mechanically ‘explains’ the passage tomb. Mystical

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    Dodgy Donegal. Environment Department ‘reviews’ evidence of former senior county planner, Gerard Convie.

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    Michael McLoone is Chairman of B&B Ireland and of Donegal Airport, and of the Prison Service group under Haddington Road, and was, until recently, on the board of Enterprise Ireland and was formerly CEO of Beaumont Hospital in Dublin, and chairman of the Blood Transfusion Board. His brother, Peter, was a globe-trotting CEO of Fás. Another brother, Paul, was chairman of Donegal Tourism. But the focus on this article is on Michael McLoone in his controversion Manager of Donegal County Council (1994-2010).   A senior Planner in Donegal County Council, Gerry Convie, was subject to an investigation by his new boss within a week of McLoone taking up the position of Manager in 1994. Ultimately, following a further investigation instigated in 1998, Convie was suspended by Manager McLoone in 1999 for allegedly not following procedures in relation to his purchase of a parcel of land at Magheraroarty, near Bloody Foreland. Convie sued, asserting he had placed his interest on the public register, such as it was, and in all relevant planning applications and had not improperly influenced any planning application. The Department of the Environment, under Noel Dempsey, backed McLoone.   In the end, McLoone and Convie signed an out-of-Court agreement that he had merely made an “error of judgement”, and benefited from a financial settlement. He then resigned. In 2001, Jim Harley became Senior Planner. Later McLoone told councillors that Convie was involved in wrongdoing contrary to the signed Agreement and contrary to his later remarks before the High Court. After this, Convie entered private practice and, as a result of some of the matters he saw in that capacity, made a number of complaints to the Minister. As he reverted to private practice, he claims to have discovered many improprieties in the planning system in Donegal, “a cesspit”. Ultimately he complained regarding 20 Case Studies to various Ministers for the Environment and to the Standards in Public Office Commission (which ruled most of the complaints not within its remit) to no avail. In 2006 the Council sued Convie for alleged breach of the Agreement, but dropped the proceedings after a fractious four years, without any damages or costs award, but with huge cost to the County. The current County Manager, Séamus Neely, has enthusiastically expressed his support for the actions and statements of Mr McLoone in all these matters and goes so far as to state that there is nothing wrong with the type of relationships which Jim Harley cultivated and has expressed support for the treatment of Convie by Mr McLoone.   Convie worked in Donegal County Council as a planner for 24 years. He claims it was well known in Donegal, and beyond, that he would not capitulate to the “goings-on in planning” by certain councilors and senior officials in Co Donegal. He tried to control one-off housing, produced the first design guide and used to appeal to An Bord Pleanála, on his own behalf and at his own expense, all decisions to grant planning permission pushed through via the infamous S4 motions.   Since he left the Council, he has consistently claimed that there was bullying and intimidation within the council of planners who sought to make decisions based exclusively on the planning merits of particular applications. He was pilloried in the local media. Indeed, he claims one councilor constantly referred to him as a ”wee shit from the North”. Michael McLoone attributes the fractiousness to differences of personality and says Convie is motivated by revenge.       Jim Harley rose from junior planning positions to become Donegal County Council’s Senior Planner, while also often Acting as Director of Planning, within a period of two years after Convie’s departure, until he resigned in 2006. Senior planners make recommendations to the County Manager who usually would be expected to follow them. In an affidavit that has been opened in court, Convie alleges Harley: 1) recommended permissions for members of his family, his friends and associates that breached the relevant Development Plans – the democratic, legal, planning constitution – to an extent that was almost systemic; 2) submitted planning applications to Donegal County Council on behalf of friends and associates; 3) dealt with planning applications submitted by himself from submission to decision and in express time; 4) ignored the recommendations of other planners; 5) destroyed the recommendations of other planners; 6) submitted fraudulent correspondence to the planning department; 7) forged signatures; 8) improperly interfered and used inappropriate influence as described in a number of planning applications; 9) was improperly close to a number of leading architects and developers in Donegal, including having a family relationship with the head of the largest ‘architectural’ practice in Donegal, with whom he holidayed but the relationship with whom was never declared.   In the affidavit opened in court, Convie alleges: Jim Harley inappropriately manipulated planning applications at Ballyliffin in Inishowen to promote planning permissions for associates of his on lands where permission had previously been refused and there had been no change in policy or in the development plan.   A next-door neighbour of Jim Harley submitted an outline planning application for a site he owned in an area of exceptionally high amenity between the road and sea at Malin Head, for which previous applications for other people had been unsuccessful. Jim Harley dealt with the planning application, while Convie was on leave, recommending granting permission, and did not make a declaration of interest. Later, the neighbour made an application for full permission pursuant to the outline permission. Jim Harley submitted the application and, according to Convie, forged the name “K O’Donnell” on the plans. In the end, another planner in the Council, in record time, recommended allowing permission and this was endorsed by Convie as it was predicated on the outline permission. Later Harley submitted an application for his own holiday house within these overall lands, with a declaration of interest. The problem was the failure to declare his interest in applications that were not in his name.

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    The tame, interrupted and unpublished ‘Planning Reviews’

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    The Department of the Environment (DoE) has been ‘investigating’ or rather ‘reviewing’ bad planning in a number of local authorities. In June 2013 the Department agreed to a High Court order overturning its own findings of no evidence of wrongdoing in the planning department of Donegal County Council on dates mostly in the 1990s. It apologised to former senior planner, Gerard Convie, who had made those claims and paid him €25,000 damages, for findings in the Department’s report put before the Dáil in June 2012 dismissing allegations by him of irregular planning decisions within the Council. It recently [2015] appointed a senior counsel to look into the allegations on a non-statutory ie makey-uppy basis. There is no commitment to publish this report. The review reached conclusions on the other Counties as long ago as July 2015 but they have not been published. Here’s what happened: In 2009/2010 An Taisce requested that the DoE conduct investigations into planning practices in three councils – County Cork, Dublin City and County Galway. Taking An Taisce’s material together with other complaints, the then Minister John Gormley sanctioned independent investigations into six councils in early 2011.In late 2011 – the Department acting through former Minister of State Willie Penrose rejected the option of proper investigation in favour of a shallow in-house ‘internal review’. The result was a report with no credibility issued in June 2012. The Department then retained an external consultant (Mr Henk van der Kamp) in late 2012 to undertake further study but with no more investigation than the original internal review. And with just as little credibility behind it, the van der Kamp report must now also be withdrawn. In June the Convie case exposed the shallowness of the Department’s surface ‘investigations’ and ‘findings’. There will now be an outside investigation. Here’s what it will look at: Carlow County Council The allegations concern, to a very significant degree, Seamus (or Jimmy) O’Connor, the then Carlow Director of Planning. In a report into the allegations by former Louth County Manager, John Quinlivan, published in Oct 2010, O’Connor was described as having broken the law for failing to keep notes of meetings with developers, and for engaging in the “unacceptable practice” of meeting such developers alone, unaccompanied by other Council officials. However, there has been no real examination of the consequences of O’Connor’s actions, and in the wake of the Quinlivan report, O’Connor was merely shifted sideways within Carlow County Council, retaining the same very comfortable salary as a Director of Services as before. Cork City The main complaints with regard to Cork City Council’s planning stem from the ‘closed’ nature of its pre-planning meetings. First, many of the meetings were not classified as pre-planning meetings. Classification of such meetings is highly important because notes of meetings between Council officials and developers must be published by the Council in the event a planning application is later submitted after the Council has made its decision on the proposal. In order words, pre-planning meetings ultimately become part of the public record, whereas meetings deemed not to be pre-planning don’t. Essentially, the DoE found that attempts to play fast and loose with the classification of meetings were outside the legislation. In a common theme, however, no-one was held accountable and the consequences of failing to categorise meetings as pre-planning meetings was never properly examined. Cork County The main complaints with regard to Cork City Council’s planning stem from the ‘closed’ nature of its pre-planning meetings. First, many of the meetings were not classified as pre-planning meetings. Classification of such meetings is highly important because notes of meetings between Council officials and developers must be published by the Council in the event a planning application is later submitted after the Council has made its decision on the proposal. In order words, pre-planning meetings ultimately become part of the public record, whereas meetings deemed not to be pre-planning don’t. Essentially, the DoE found that attempts to play fast and loose with the classification of meetings were outside the legislation. In a common theme, however, no-one was held accountable and the consequences of failing to categorise meetings as pre-planning meetings was never properly examined. Cork County The allegation is that so-called ‘liaison officers’ were appointed as go-betweens on planning applications, feeding back news of ‘progress’ or ‘resistance’ on individual planning application to interested councillors. The practice had or has no statutory basis but it appears Cork County Council defended it unreservedly to the DoE. In rather weak language, the DoE told Cork County Council to discontinue. Again, however, no-one was found responsible for putting in place an unlawful system nor was there any investigation into the consequences of many years of ‘liaison’. Donegal County Senior Planner Gerry Convie who controlled planning in Donegal for 20 years claimed that there was bullying and intimidation within the council of planners who sought to make decisions based exclusively on the planning merits of particular applications. Convie was suspended in 1999, allegedly for not following procedures in relation to his involvement in a parcel of land at Magheroarty, near Bloody Foreland. Convie has a list of 10 “suspect cases” in the county and said there was a “cess pit” in the county’s planning. After he won his High Court case in June 2013, the Department conceded that his allegations were never really investigated, and covered all his legal costs estimated at several hundred thousand euro. Dublin City The allegations concern city officials who – during the property bubble – encouraged developers to apply for buildings far higher than allowed under the city development plan. An Taisce has published a considerable volume of material to substantiate the allegations, but to date officialdom has been in denial. Regarding the years 2005 – 2009, Dublin City also stands accused of the same jiggery-pokery in relation to pre-planning meetings as Cork City. Meath County The allegations against Meath County Council relate to rezoning decisions contrary to the Council’s own development plan. According to An Taisce and others,

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    Was it for this? Watering down of Legal Services Act a disgrace in a Republic. By Michael Smith

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    The circumstances of the demise of former Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, diverted attention from the risk of the thwarting of his reforms of the legal profession. Infamously many ministers, and their – often informal – advisers, are lawyers.

    RELATED LINKS
    The Irish Times on self-regulation and protectionism
    Smug view from the Law Society – Video

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