Just ﬁx it - Village Magazine

30 — village July - August 2012

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F ALL the boom-era faults we should

be determined to ﬁx, planning and

development law and local govern-

ment design should rank amongst the

most urgent. It virtually goes without saying that

the present economic diﬃculties in which we ﬁnd

ourselves are, largely, a direct consequence of the

permissive and reckless relationship that existed

between banks, the property developing elite

and some elected oﬃcials – particularly those at

local level. Too often it is solely the Department of

Finance that is examined for clues as to the nature

of our recent economic collapse. And, while not

proposing in any way to mitigate the responsibility

of those responsible for developing and imple-

menting inﬂationary policies where the property

boom is concerned, it’s clear that in order to have

a property boom you must ﬁrst have land zoned

for development and

planning permission

granted; responsibility

for that lies across the

river at the Department

of the Environment

and amongst Local

Authorities. An external

investigative process

was initiated by the

then Minister for the

Environment John

Gormley TD in 2010, in

order to probe alleged

planning irregularities

identiﬁed in Carlow,

Dublin City, Cork City,

Cork County, Galway

and Meath. However, as opposed to continuing

and pursuing this type of inquiry, newly appointed

Minister for the Environment, Phil Hogan TD,

unfortunately took the opposite approach.

Almost immediately upon assuming oﬃce in

March 2011 Minister Hogan cancelled the exter-

nal investigative process - a disappointing turn of

events given that we know the process was well-

advanced by the time the Fianna Fáil-Green Party

government fell in January 2011. Several planning

consultancies had prepared tender proposals and

the independent panel of planners to oversee the

investigation had been agreed upon. As has been

noted by contributors to this publication and oth-

ers, this decision by Minister Hogan is widely seen

as a massive retrograde step. A view supported by

several developments this year alone. The publi-

cation of the Mahon Report and An Taisce’s State

of the Nation Report , not to mention the convic-

tion of former Fine Gael councillor Fred Forsey for

taking corrupt payments, should have set alarm

bells ringing in the Minister’s oﬃce, but unfortu-

nately the decision to wind up the investigations

was not reversed. A state of aﬀairs conﬁrmed in

the Dáil on 3rd May of this year by Minister for

Planning, Jan O’Sullivan TD, who conﬁrmed her

predecessor Willie Penrose TD had made a policy

decision in favour of internal as opposed to exter-

nal inquiries in the interests of making a saving to

the exchequer.

The result of those internal reviews, released

on 12th June, is that there was a ﬁnding of no

prima facie evidence of corruption in the plan-

ning process in the seven local authorities under

review. Unfortunately, we do not have the beneﬁt

of an independent investigation to reassure us of

that conclusion.

We do, however, have the beneﬁt of several

examples where external authorities have inves-

tigated isolated instances of alleged corruption

and malpractice in our planning system.

If we look at one of the complaints that was

subject to the original investigation (and investi-

gated by aforementioned internal review) relating

to Cork City Council, we can see that the Oﬃce

of the Ombudsman, conducting a limited sur-

vey of nine city and county councils in response

to alleged irregularities in Cork, concluded that,

“diﬀerent local authorities, including Cork City

Council, are adopting diﬀerent practices and

procedures and taking diﬀerent interpretations

of the legislation and guidelines”, and that this,

“suggests that there are diﬃculties of a systemic

nature which may need to be dealt with on a sys-

temic basis.”

Such a conclusion is alarming, although in

the speciﬁc Cork example it’s important to note

that the Internal Planning Review stated that the

matter was resolved to the Ombudsman’s satis-

faction. Nevertheless, if a limited investigation

of nine authorities can result in a conclusion such

as the Ombudsman’s, surely it is incumbent upon

the current government to restore conﬁdence in

the system they govern by initiating a fully inde-

pendent inquiry.

It goes without saying that the Mahon Tribunal

is the most exhaustive and comprehensive exam-

ple of an independent external investigation

into planning irregularities conducted to date,

albeit far too costly for the taxpayer and far too

protracted in its deliberations. Its conclusions

scarcely need re-stating – damning, as it was,

of the planning system in Dublin and of several

elected oﬃcials and local authority staﬀ, and

scathing in its assessment of corruption which it

found had had a malign eﬀect on virtually every

level of Irish political representation.

Just ﬁx it

Remove corruption and developer-centredness

from planning and local government

ÄóÝ

District-level

community-

focused

councils with a

speciﬁc remit

of ‘place-

shaping’

If there was a chance that even some of the

activities which Mahon uncovered were happen-

ing in other local authorities, then to my mind,

for continued public conﬁdence in our plan-

ning system, the argument for fully independent

investigations of other councils where irregu-

larities have been already identiﬁed is a strong

one. Admittedly, Mahon’s remit was exception-

ally broad; I make no case for an investigation

of Mahon’s duration and certainly not its cost

– however we can be reasonably sure that an

internal Departmental investigation would not

have resulted in the same information coming to

light.

The ﬁnal example which came to prominence

recently is that of former Fine Gael council-

lor Fred Forsey. Mr Forsey’s conviction for

accepting corrupt payments came about in large

part because a third party with detailed knowl-

edge of the misdeeds decided to speak out. We

would most likely never have known of the extent

of planning corruption committed by Mr Forsey

in Dungarvan if there were not a source with

such knowledge available. If it’s also the case, as

has recently been alleged, that senior members

of Fine Gael were in fact aware of improprieties

surrounding Mr Forsey in 2007, then the case

for impartial and independent investigations into

planning irregularities becomes virtually impos-

sible to ignore for any politician concerned about

the credibility of our planning authorities. And yet,

the Government has not budged.

Beyond the immediate political sensitivity of

commissioning independent planning inquiries

there is much that the Government could be doing

to restore conﬁdence in the planning process,

yet progress remains glacially slow. The Mahon

Report’s recommendations read like a wish-list of

what I, other politicians across diﬀerent parties

and very many in the planning and heritage com-

munities have been advocating for many years.

An independent planning regulator should cer-

tainly be advanced as quickly as is practicable. The

idea that our planning system is, in eﬀect, without

a permanent external audit and oversight mech-

anism is hopelessly out of date. Ireland, given

the country’s history in this area, badly needs

a regulator completely free from the possibility

of political interference. This was very strongly

recommended by Mahon and endorsed by a wide

variety of interest groups, politicians and civil

Bad planning, Glenties, Co. Donegal

32 — village July - August 2012

society organisations. As a concrete ﬁrst step, an

explicit commitment from the Government on

this would instil much conﬁdence in its approach

to reform, even in the absence of the independent

investigations which are needed.

Enhancing whistleblowing legislation is

another action recommended by the Mahon

Report. As I mentioned, the case with former

councillor Forsey, and indeed the origins of Mahon

itself, demonstrate the eﬀectiveness of private

individuals coming forward with information to

highlight malpractice. The current legislation in

this area is weak at best, and a move in this direc-

tion would be a relatively simple procedure that

could oﬀer much in terms of identifying irregu-

larities, particularly if, as Mahon recommends,

independent contractors are included.

Quite a lot of the concern directed towards the

planning system comes from what the Internal

Review Report identiﬁed as the inconsistent

application of our planning law across diﬀer-

ent local authorities. One immediate step the

Government could take to address this would be

to develop a consolidated Planning Act which

would incorporate many of the recent positive

reforms introduced over recent years into a single

act. This would aid planners and elected oﬃcials.

Although, of course, the existence of several pieces

of planning legislation is not the sole reason the

law is applied inconsistently, the development of

a consolidated Planning Act would make the law

clear, unambiguous and less prone to variation in

interpretation. Finally, and perhaps most signif-

icantly in my mind, the development of detailed

reform of our local government structures is one

area that must be prioritised by the Government.

At present we have 34 county and city level

authorities; including town councils, we end up

with 88 distinct planning authorities as a result.

The phasing out of the present local authorities

and councillor/county manager system and the

move to a regional structure in local government,

with at most three or four regional-level elected

assemblies holding signiﬁcant powers, would be

amongst the most positive reforms that could be

undertaken for the betterment of this State.

Similarly, at community level, the development

of district level community-focused councils with

a speciﬁc remit of ‘place-shaping’ - i.e. empower-

ing communities to respond collectively to local

needs in a sustainable way to enhance the eco-

nomic, social, spatial and environmental life of

local residents - would be a move away from the

current, and arguably negative, dependence of

citizens on local and national representatives. The

re-ordering of our planning authorities to mirror

this structure, with at most three or four regional

authorities, independently regulated and bound

by detailed regional and national spatial strate-

gies would similarly do much to tackle the corrupt

practices of the past, I feel.

Given the prominence that planning corrup-

tion and rampant over-zoning has played in our

economic catastrophe, the lukewarm agenda that

the present Government is pursuing in terms of

reform is worrying. To Minister O’Sullivan’s credit,

she has committed to implementing the 12 rec-

ommendations of the Internal Planning Review

and the Government is still to publish its detailed

response to Mahon’s ﬁndings. However, the pace

of reform lacks urgency, which is worrying and

highly disappointing after almost a year and a half

of what many had hoped would be a government

dedicated to wide-ranging reform.

Catherine Murphy is Independent TD for Kildare

North

ÄóÝ

RECOMMENDATIONS

O Fully independent investigations of councils

where irregularities have been already been

identiﬁed

O An independent planning regulator

O Enhanced whistleblowing legislation

O A consolidated Planning Act which would

incorporate many of the recent positive

reforms introduced over recent years into a

single act

O The phasing out of the present local

authorities and councillor/county manager

system and the move to a regional structure

in local government, with at most three

or four regional-level elected assemblies

holding signiﬁcant powers

O The development of district-level

community-focused councils with a speciﬁc

remit of ‘place-shaping’

O The re-ordering of our planning authorities

to mirror this structure, with at most three

or four regional authorities, independently

regulated and bound by detailed regional

and national spatial strategies

Bad planning, Letterkenny, Co. Donegal

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New Easy promise.indd 1 08/03/2012 13:22