Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde - Village Magazine

July 2022 71

Four inquiries into ABP

Allegations of impropriety against An Bord

Pleanála’s deputy chairman Paul Hyde have led

to a senior counsel’s inquiry being ordered by

Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien, a separate

internal board review, an investigation of its

ﬁnancial accounts by the Public Accounts

Committee and an examination of ABP’s

procedures by the Office of the Planning

Regulator.

Hyde has served as a board member of ABP

since 1 May 2014. He has also, since 2017,

served as chairperson of the Strategic Housing

Division (SHD), which controversially deals with

large-scale housing and student-housing

applications direct and without a preliminary

decision by a local authority.

Hyde’s alleged delinquencies

ABP has been brought into disrepute by Hyde’s

property deals, by his criminal failed declarations

of property interests and mishandled conﬂicts of

interests, and by prohibited receiverships.

By Michael Smith

ABP has been brought into disrepute by

Hyde’s property deals, by his criminal failed

declarations of property interests and

mishandled conﬂicts of interests, and by

prohibited receiverships

Mr Hyde doesn’t seem to have appreciated the

public interest in stringent planning standards

or the need not to have his head turned by a

private-development agenda.

ABP’s dubious birth pangs

The need for stringency and probity has been

particularly dictated by the history of ABP,

founded in 1976 to avert dubious ministerial

interventions, and then reformed after Ray

Burke, Fianna Fáil’s most corrupt, tried to pack

it. as well as by the systemic and endemic

corruption of the planning process outlined at

length by the Planning Tribunal. ABP had served

in recent decades without any taint of corruption.

Now it’s being blown apart.

Hyde has engaged in behaviour that cuts

across his obligations under the Planning Acts ,

the criminal law and the ethics acts.

1. Failure to declare interests

Below is attached a list of developments where

Mr Hyde had a conﬂict of interest included in a

complaint I made to An Bord Pleanála, triggering

Minister O’Brien’s instigation of a Review. It was

based on research from online investigative

website, The Ditch.

• Land registry records attached indicate Mr

Hyde is the owner of the following properties:

30 Lindeville, Cork; 4 Castleﬁeld, Baltimore,

Cork; Apt 30 Pope’s Hill, Blackpool; Apt 24

Pope’s Hill, Blackpool, Cork; 16 Watergold,

Douglas, Cork; Unit 2 Maryborough Green,

Douglas, Cork; land at Rathdu, Grenagh,

Cork (co-owner).

• Mr Hyde also has a 25 percent shareholding

in H20 Property Holdings Ltd.According to

land registry records, the company is the

registered owner of Folio CK106589F, a two

acre, partially developed, plot of land at

Pope’s Hill. There are no pending

transactions on the folio.

The Law

Section 147 states at (1): “It shall be the duty of

a person to whom this section applies to give to

the relevant body a declaration in the prescribed

form, signed by him or her and containing

particulars of every interest of his or hers which

is an interest to which this section applies.

(2) A declaration under this section shall be

given at least once a year.

(3)(a) This section applies to the following

persons:

(i) a member of the Board…”.

Section 147(3)(b) requires a board member

to declare “any estate or interest which a

person to whom this section applies has in any

land and “any business of dealing in or

developing land in which such a person is

engaged or employed and any such business

ENVIRONMENT

Dr Jekyll

and Mr Hyde

Paul Hyde is in very hot water

for arrogant ﬂouting of the law

in his role of Deputy Chairman

of An Bord Pleanála (ABP)

72 July 2022

carried on by a company or other body of which

he or she, or any nominee of his or hers, is a

member”. Failure to comply with the foregoing

is an oence under section 147(11) of the Act.

Section 148(1) provides that “Where a

member of the Board has [an interest in any]

appeal which falls to be decided or determined

by the Board under any enactment, he or she

shall comply with the following requirements:

(a) he or she shall disclose to the Board the

nature of his or her interest; (b) he or she shall

take no part in the discussion or consideration

of the matter; (c) he or she shall not vote or

otherwise act as a member of the Board in

relation to the matter; (d) he or she shall neither

inﬂuence nor seek to inﬂuence a decision of the

Board as regards the matter”.

Failure to comply with the foregoing is an

oence under section 148(10) of the Act.

2. Conﬂicts on interest

Mr Hyde declared he had no interests in his 2021

and 2022 declarations of interest to ABP

(submitted in accordance with section 147 of

the Act).

On 9 March 2022 Mr Hyde voted on an SHD

application for a development in Blackpool,

Cork. Part of the land of the applicant in that

case is located less than 50 metres from the

land owned by Mr Hyde’s company (H20

Property Holdings Ltd). Mr Hyde did not declare

a conﬂict of interest at the board meeting as

required under section 148 of the Act.

According to the Ditch Mr Hyde signed o on

a controversial build-to-rent development on

which his brother’s company had worked,

carrying out the emergency services access

report. Both developments were met with

objections by local residents.

In the case of a 17 Gilford Park Sandymount

in Dublin 4, a house which among other things

seems to have been dubiously demolished

behind facade, Paul Hyde was one of two Bord

Pleanála members who awarded the planning

permission to his brother Stefan and Stefan’s

wife (in whose name the application was made).

In disagreeing with its own inspector’s

recommendation on the master bedroom, the

board “considered that the proposed

development would not be overbearing to an

extent that would injure the amenities of the

neighbouring property”, according to the An

Bord Pleanála order.

3. Composition or arrangement with

creditors

Mr Hyde has clearly experienced compromising

diculties with several property investments

since his appointment to ABP.

According to The Ditch, in April 2015

Promontoria Aran took over the Ulster Bank

mortgage on land in Rathdu, County Cork,

owned by Mr Hyde and three co-investors.

In March 2017 the distressed loan buyer

issued High Court proceedings against Hyde

and his co-investors but the case was

discontinued four months later.

According to Cork County Council planning

records, the property has since been bought

from a receiver.

Hyde had failed to make repayments on

another Ulster Bank mortgage for a property he

owned since 2007 in Douglas, County Cork. In

October 2017 Promontoria Oyster appointed a

receiver to sell the one-bed apartment.

Hyde had rented the apartment for €950 a

month as late as October 2016. In July 2021 it

was sold at a distressed property auction for

€121,000.

Receivers were appointed to dispose of

apartment 30 Pope’s Hill; 16 Watergold and the

land at Rathdu. There are pending transactions

on two of the folios.

It is clear that Mr Hyde has beneﬁted from

arrangements whereby his creditors have

accepted amounts less than they are owed.

The Law

Section 106 (13) of the Act states that – “(d) A

person shall cease to be an ordinary member of

the Board if he or she…

(ii) makes a composition or arrangement

with creditors”.

A composition is an agreement among the

creditors of an insolvent debtor to accept an

amount less than they are owed, in order to

receive immediate payment.

Mr Hyde should have left the board when he

made compositions and arrangements whereby

his creditors have accepted amounts less than

they are owed. He has brought ABP into

disrepute by not resigning when he was so

compromised. He has ceased membership of

the board, even if he has somehow extricated

himself from his financial messes. His

membership is legally over. Clearly any party to

proceedings of ABP can challenge any decision

in which Mr Hyde has been involved since the

ﬁrst composition outlined above.

Hyde appears to have been disproportionately

inﬂuential within the Bord. Despite the legal

requirement for three members to vote on such

matters, he and his colleague Michelle Fagan

refused a challenge against Intel Ireland’s

strategic infrastructure development

application for expansion of its plant in Leixlip;

and Hyde and ABP chairman, Dave Walsh, who

opted not to apologise for the Bord’s failings on

his visit to the PAC, decided on an application

relating to a solar farm in Meath. ABP board

members Michelle Fagan and Paul Hyde were

deciding up to 26 planning cases at meetings

held without a third board member. Most of the

meetings were held in the afternoon and

excluded a third board member who had sat with

Fagan and Hyde during the morning. Over a one-

year period at these meetings the pair ruled on

58 telecommunications mast appeals. They

granted permission on all but one occasion

often precipitately, and despite the concerns of

planning inspectors in over a dozen cases.

4. Ethics Legislation

The chair of An Bord Pleanála told the Public

Accounts Committee on 13 July that that

“generally” he believes his board to be “in full

compliance” with Ireland’s code of practice for

the governance of State authorities.

ABP board members are required by the code

to “disclose any possible conﬂict of interest”

when adjudicating on planning matters.

While it seems the relationship between Hyde

and his brother’s company isn’t covered under

ABP’s code it does seem to be embraced by

ethics legislation which extends to “any body,

organisation or group appointed by the

Government or a Minister of the Government”.

Consequences

Correspondence between the planning regulator

and a person directly aected by a recent

decision by Mr Hyde states unequivocally that

no decisions will be overturned as a direct

consequence of the ongoing investigations. But

it is likely that the imminent reports will create

unprecedented fragility for impugned decisions,

Meanwhile new laws are on the way for

recruitment into the planning authority. The

Taoiseach has said a new Planning Bill will be

introduced in the autumn,

The case of Mr Paul Hyde suggests that

vulnerability is enormous and needs to be

staunched to avoid fundamental reputational

damage to ABP, an agency that has in recent

years been given an undemocratic mandate to

make sweeping decisions and which has lost

the run of itself.

Hyde should have left the board when he

made compositions and arrangements

whereby his creditors have accepted amounts

less than they are owed. He has ceased

membership of the board, even if he has

somehow extricated himself from his ﬁnancial

messes. His membership is legally over