Donegal County Council still at it, laughing in the face of national governance

24 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 25

Over 1,400

developments in

Donegal have been

constructed without

planning permission

since 2019 up to

August of last year

Background: corruption in DCC

planning

2013 Convie allegations in High Court

It’s now ten years since Village published the

exposé of dodgy planning in Donegal on the back

of detailed allegations covering 20 alleged

incidents from former Senior Executive Planner

Gerard Convie. Former County Manager Michael

McLoone sued Village and me as editor for

defamation but, like so many, he never followed

up.

The piece was based on documents Convie had

opened in court in 2013 in an action he won

against the Department of Environment for failing

to vindicate his good name after it had dissed his

allegations when he had submitted them to a

review initiated by John Gormley when he was

Minister for Planning.

The court found he had a right to vindication of

his good name and he got €25,000 in damages

plus substantial costs.

The allegations were the subject of a review by

a senior counsel, Rory Mulcahy, whose 2017

report has – unconscionably - yet to be published.

They have now been on the desk of seven

successive ministers.

Convie should really sue the Department

(again) for release of the report as his name

cannot be vindicated until its findings are

published.

The current relevant Minister is Darragh

O’Brien who declared to the Dáil that he is

“considering the matter” and will bring it to

Cabinet “in due course” which he eventually

upgraded to the end of 2023.

But, though the Minister has a good record on

corruption, still nothing.

2021 Convie High Court victories against SIPOC

Convie, a whistleblower hero, won two further,

unsung, High Court cases in March 2021 after the

Standards in Public Oce Commission (SIPOC),

then chaired by Peter Tyndall the Ombudsman,

peremptorily rejected his complaints about more

recent planning abuses in Ireland’s worst-

planned county. The media entirely ignored the

recent cases. Tyndall has since retired as

Ombudsman, after eight years, and from SIPOC.

The dodginess goes on

Retention Problem

On 6 January 2024 the Donegal Daily reported –

“investigation ﬁnds huge retention permission

Donegal County Council still

at it, laughing in the face of

national governance

Minister for Housing sitting on Mulcahy

Report on old planning dodginess for

seven years, but it’s ongoing

By Michael Smith

Year 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023

Referred to Solicitors for prosecution 0 3 4 24 14 34 43 14 32 28 6

Warning Letters Issued 14 159 177 118 166 366 286 167 352 225 79

Enforcement Notices Issued 0 23 16 35 123 195 163 119 125 166 58

Source: DCC

Village hs been leding with Donegl’s

dodgy plnning for nerly  decde: senior

counsel’s report remins unpublished

volume in Donegal’’. Being Donegal, the report

was small.

Over 1,400 developments in Donegal have

been constructed without planning permission

since 2019 up to August of last year,

The chart above shows ﬁgures for dierent

types of enforcement action in County Donegal.

Current case study: night club, Letterkenny

A case which clearly illustrates why there is such

a problem with unauthorised development in

Donegal is the unauthorised public house/night

club on Main Street, Letterkenny.

This premises houses ﬁve bars over three

ﬂoors in the best Letterkenny way, and has three

DJs in three of the bars, with dance ﬂoors; it has

a licence to operate until 3 a.m. There is no

planning permission for a night club.

To use a pub/lounge-bar as a night club is not

NEWS

24 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 25

Michael Smith, Ian Lumley of An Taisce and Gerard Convie at a press conference about Donegal

planning delinquency, in 2015

permitted without change of use permission.

Objections to the development and the use

were submitted to Donegal County Council [DCC]

on 24 September 2018, 1 October 2018 and also

on 15 October 2018: all were ignored.

A decision to grant planning permission for

internal works to the premises was made on 27

September 2018 – no planning permission

existed at that time and no application was made

to use the premises as a night club; an appeal on

this decision was submitted on 15 October 2018

– no planning permission existed at that time.

The applicant withdrew the planning

application on 16 October 2018 – no planning

permission existed at that time; all the while the

proposed development continued apace despite

continuous objections submitted to DCC.

DCC maintained all the while that there was no

unauthorised development taking place despite

the evidence.

To illustrate this incompetence, the applicant,

on 27 November 2018, made an application to

retain all the unauthorised development he had

been carrying out and which was the subject of

complaints, but not for the use of the premises

as a night club – no planning permission existed

at that time.

The premises began operating in October 2018

when the unauthorised development was

completed; a decision to grant permission for the

unauthorised development was made on 25

January 2019; an appeal was made on that

decision on 18 February 2019 – no planning

permission existed at that time; further objections

were submitted to DCC complaining that the

premises was operating as if it had planning

permission; DCC issued a Warning Letter – a

useless enforcement tool given that this was a

premises admitting hundreds of patrons

especially at the week-ends. The Warning Letter

is useless because of the dangers of operating

such a premises without planning permission:

these include possible fire and building

regulation breaches, problems with insurance,

problems with employment contracts etc.

DCC held a special meeting on 18 March 2019

to deal with the arrangements pertaining to the

operation of licensed premises and night clubs in

Donegal; this was called on foot of the awful

disaster at a night club in Cookstown, Co Tyrone,

the previous week – still no planning permission

existed for the subject premises at that time.

Complaints to the Ombudsman were dismissed

for the reason that enforcement is apparently

ultra vires, outside the powers of, the

Ombudsman.

The planning appeal was decided on 4 June

2019 and made subject to conditions.

A complaint was made about the development

to DCC in September 2018 and it was advanced

to the Minister in July 2019 though the

complainant never received any response.

DCC granted a Fire Safety Certiﬁcate for the

premises despite the fact that no planning

permission was ever granted for a night club.

This is a legal requirement as has been conﬁrmed

by legal advice.

The Fire Safety Certiﬁcate was granted on 26

November 2018. Continued complaints to both

DCC and the Ombudsman failed to have any

impact; planning permission was not granted for

the premises until June 2019; and was subject to

conditions. DCC did not serve an enforcement

notice until April 2023, but only in respect of non-

compliance with the conditions imposed by An

Bord Pleanála and not in respect of use of the

premises as a night club or the erection of the

billboard.

Subsequent complaints to DCC included that

the development was not being carried out in

accordance with the planning conditions and that

the applicant had erected a large billboard

advertising the premises along the Railway Road

in Letterkenny without planning permission.

They repeated the complaint that the premises

were operating as a night club without planning

permission. As of February 2024 the substantive

unauthorised night-club use had not been

regularised – still no planning permission exists.

The complaints were escalated to the

underenergised Ombudsman in November 2022.

As well as exonerating DCC for not dealing with

the complaints to it and taking four years to

acknowledge the complaints, only after they had

been forwarded to the Ombudsman, the

Ombudsman found that DCC could ﬁnd no

evidence of the unauthorised billboard. This

seemed a stretch since the billboard is

approximately 13 m. long, 4 m. wide and 4 m.

high, loaded atop a stranded trailer. It is situated

in a prominent position along the Railway [Pearse]

Road in Letterkenny leading to the town centre.

This isn’t the ﬁrst time that DCC has lied to the

Ombudsman regarding complaints to it [the

Ombudsman] concerning unauthorised

development; e.g. a complaint to the Ombudsman

claimed that DCC had permitted development on

top of an ancient graveyard situated along the

iconic Knockalla Drive on the Fanad Peninsula,

which, under the County Development Plan, is

protected.

DCC told the Ombudsman that no such

graveyard existed. The Ombudsman accepted

the word of DCC. Frankly that was embarrassing.

It’s as if the Ombudsman doesn’t care how the

public sees it spends public funds in pursuit of

complaints.

There may be issues regarding the relevant

expertise, relevant experience and relevant

qualiﬁcations of Ombudsman sta dealing with

the administration of planning in the country; and

their stang numbers. That was put directly to

the Ombudsman and it was never denied.

As well as exonerating DCC for not

dealing with the complaints to it, the

under-energised Ombudsman accepted

that DCC could ﬁnd no evidence of the

unauthorised billboard. This seemed a

stretch since the billboard is 13 m. long,

4 m. wide and 4 m. high

26 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 27

Eunan Quinn, current Senior

Planner, Donegal County Council

Over promoted to acting director of planning

Eunan Quinn was an assistant planner in DCC

when it unsuccessfully sought the removal of

Gerard Convie from his post.

At the time, Quinn applied to the appointments

commission for a post of executive planner in

another county, it being a step above assistant

planner. His application failed and he did not

even meet the level to be included in the

commission’s placements list.

In his eorts to remove Convie from his post,

Michael McLoone enlisted the help of Quinn to

attempt to smear Convie’s name in respect of any

perceived dodgy planning decisions Convie may

have been involved in. The evidence shows that

Quinn applied himself studiously in the eort but

failed, and no ‘’evidence’’ he produced was ever

used by McLoone in his failed High Court case to

remove Convie.

However, and despite the decision of the

independent appointments commission

McLoone proceeded to promote Quinn from

assistant planner, to executive planner, to senior

executive planner, to senior planner to acting

director of planning. This was extraordinarily, or

rather extraordinarily except in Donegal, all in the

space of two years or so, despite his rejection by

the appointments commission for a relatively

junior position.

McLoone had also rewarded Jim Harley for his

assistance in the removal of Convie from his post,

elevating him from the position of executive

planner to Convie’s position and then to the level

of senior planner and then to acting director of

planning despite documented evidence

presented in the High Court regarding alleged

corruption by Harley. The adavit of Convie,

opened in the High Court, sets out that McLoone

needed Harley in Convie’s position in order that

the planning decisions desired by McLoone

would be forthcoming. That averment was never

denied. Harley is one of the main subjects of the

unpublished Mulcahy Report.

Unaddressed complaint about Quinn’s working

relationship with wife

McLoone failed to examine the complaints with

documentary evidence sent to him and to SIPOC,

and to the Minister subsequently — regarding

Quinn and his failure to declare that his wife,

Aideen, was acting as a planning consultant in

Donegal involved in planning applications and

planning appeals, all when Quinn was a senior

ocial in the section of planning dealing with

planning applications.

Aideen had been an assistant planner in DCC

but left around the mid 1990s or so, when she

married Eunan and they began a family. However,

the documentary evidence shows that she

continued to operate in a consulting capacity

working along with other agents submitting

planning applications in the county, none with

any planning qualiﬁcations and most with no

architectural qualiﬁcations either.

Despite this, Eunan Quinn never made the

necessary declarations.

Aideen acted under a degree of cover, with no

entry in the phone book or elsewhere, and

operating from her home. She obtained planning

commissions from planning agents in the county

with whom her husband, Eunan, would have had

working relations.

The matter was the subject of the complaint to

Minister John Gormley around 2007 along with

about 20 other Cases. However, for some

unknown reason, and despite objections,

ultimately the Minister forbade the senior counsel

investigating it, Rory Mulcahy, from examining

the complaint regarding Quinn.

Notwithstanding the decision to omit the

Quinn complaint, Mulcahy, in his deliberations

on the complaints, was apprised of the details

and supplied with the relevant documentary

evidence. The Mulcahy Report is still awaited.

Mulcahy has long since been appointed a High

Court judge.

The Minister stated at one time that the case

involving the Quinns should be dealt with by DCC,

which had ignored the matter.

So, a complaint was made to the then chairman

of DCC, Gerry McMonagle,a Sinn Féin County

Councillor who intends to run again in the

up-coming local elections. That complaint was

made in 2017 to McMonagle at a time when, not

only was he chairman of the County Council, but

Gerry Adams was the President of Sinn Fein and

,at the Ard Fheis in 2017, Adams made it clear that

all local Sinn Féin County Councillors were to

follow the evidence which may lead to planning

corruption. That was following the local

government elections and following the debate

in the Dáil when Sinn Féin raised the matter of

alleged planning corruption in DCC.

McMonagle ignored the complaint and ignored

the instruction of his President, and, instead,

handed the complaint over to the Council’s

executive to respond. Of course, the response

was a denial of any wrong-doing. What is the

opinion now of McMonagle regarding planning

corruption? Should this individual be permitted

by SF to stand in the up-coming local elections?

In recent years, Aideen has made a return as

an employee to the planning section of DCC. She

never declared in her application for the job that

she had ever operated as a planning consultant

since she left her previous employment with DCC.

In any event, DCC was already aware that she had

been operating as a planning consultant under

the radar.

Meanwhile, Eunan and Aideen applied for and

were granted planning permission to build a

house outside Letterkenny, in Roughpark, about

four miles northeast of Letterkenny. This is on

land formerly owned by a developer called

Edward Daly.

Eunan and Aideen Quinn were granted

planning permission for their house outside

Letterkenny on a site which had been zoned as

open space in the grant of a previous planning

decision. That in itself requires explanation.

There were local objections but permission was

granted, on the recommendation of Jim Harley,

who features centrally in the Mulcahy probe.

Currently, a complaint is progressing through the

complaint process of SIPOC regarding how

planning permission was ever granted in the ﬁrst

instance as well as how and why they never

complied with most of the conditions pertaining

to their planning permission, imposed on trac

safety and public health grounds. No enforcement

action has ever been taken against the Quinns

both of whom are planning ocials in DCC with

McLoone failed to

examine the complaints

regarding Quinn, now

DCC senior planner, and

his failure to declare that

his wife, Aideen, was

acting as a planning

consultant involved in

planning applications

and appeals, all when

Quinn was a senior DCC

ofﬁcial dealing with

planning applications

Eunan Quinn

26 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 27

huge responsibility to ensure probity. The Code

of Conduct, for ocials like them, dictates that,

as well as avoiding actual impropriety, occasions

for the appearance of improper conduct must

also be avoided. Nor has any enforcement action

been taken against the developer, Edward Daly.

Village conﬁrmed recently that Eunan Quinn’s

latest yearly declaration of interests shows that

he owns the house the subject of the non-

compliant planning application. However, Aideen

Quinn does not refer to any interest in this

property on her declaration, contrary to the

requirements of ethics legislation. In previous

years Eunan too failed to make the necessary

declarations for this property.Successive county

managers from Michael McLoone onwards

ignored the complaints about this matter.

SIPOC

SIPOC is currently investigating over 20

complaints into the administration of planning

in Donegal County Council; they have all reached

the second phase of the SIPOC investigation

process whereby all those who are subject of the

complaints are invited to respond to the

allegations.

The subjects of those complaints to SIPOC

include the former county managers, McLoone

and Neely, and the current one, John McLaughlin.

Despite the serious questions regarding their

probity and the ethics of their actions and non-

actions, no Minister has sought to bring either of

them to account. In fact, when Neely quit his post

in DCC, the Minister, obviously pleased with that

man’s record and his probity, and despite the

allegations being investigated by SIPOC

regarding Neely, proceeded to appoint him to

Chair of the Independent Working Group to

examine the issue of Defective Housing, as well

as to the Housing Bodies Regulatory Authority.

Since the debacle in the High Court and the

Mulcahy report ﬁasco, Gerard Convie has brought

ﬁve successful High Court cases regarding the

administration of planning in Donegal County

Council; in the process, he has been vindicated

and paid substantial damages and his costs.

OPR

A recent report by the Oce of the Planning

Regulator (OPR) in December 2021 found that

almost 50% of all appeals decided on Donegal

planning applications were reversed by An Bord

Pleanála. Many more are altered rather than

reversed. The national average for reversals is

28%.

According to the OPR website: “One of the main

functions of the OPR is to conduct reviews of the

31 local authorities and An Bord Pleanála in

relation to the systems and procedures they have

in place to deliver planning services to the

public”.

The OPR is conducting these planning reviews

as a rolling programme, whereby each authority

in turn beneﬁts from a performance review of its

functions, with recommendations arising from

the process that are designed to enhance the

delivery of services. The programme is intended

as a developmental resource for the local

authority planning sector, with a focus on good

practice and achievements, to promote learning

between planning authorities, as well as

identifying opportunities for improvement.

The OPR delivered the pilot phase of this

programme during the course of 2021, with

reviews conducted of four authorities (Tipperary,

Louth and Kildare County Councils and Galway

City Council) which demonstrated a variety of

urban and rural planning contexts. This variety of

Councils was sensible for the pilot phase and the

experience of those reviews will now inform

subsequent phases of the OPR’s programme.

Based on knowledge gained from the pilot

phase, reﬁnements are being made to the overall

approach, with a view to making the review

process more eective, including streamlining

submission of information requirements. Also,

lifting of public health restrictions will enable

on-site visits and in-person engagement with

local authorities.

Furthermore, prior notiﬁcation of the next

schedule of reviews and details of the material

required of local authorities will assist the overall

process.

However, given all the legitimate concerns

regarding the administration of planning held by

a large swathe of the Donegal public and others,

the OPR has refused to deal any time soon with

how planning is being administered in County

Donegal, indicating that, despite complaints to it

about Donegal planning, it will decide in its own

good time when, or if, it will investigate Donegal.

Ministerial intervention now

required

Against the background of the Mulcahy report

and the reality of legal-planning anarchy in

Donegal it is clear that Minister Darragh

O’Brien must invoke section 255 of the

Planning and Development Act which applies

where the Minister considers there may be

“impropriety in the conduct of any of its

functions by a planning authority”, or “there

are serious diseconomies or ineciencies in

the conduct of its functions by a planning

authority”.

He must appoint a commissioner to carry

out the functions of the planning authority.

Nothing else will save the integrity of the

rule of law in lawless Donegal.

SF’s Gerry McMonagle, DCC Chair, ignored the

complaint and ignored the instruction of Gerry

Adams, and, instead, handed the complaint over

to the Council’s unelected executive to respond

Mick Quinn, Councillor Gerry McMongle nd

Senor Pdrig McLochlinn

Unuthorised billbord relted to the unuthorised licensed premises in letterkenny