Menu
Ireland's political and cultural magazine
18 — village July - August 2012
¥ÙÄ»ÊÄÄʽ½ù
T
HE conviction and jailing of former
Dungarvan Fine Gael councillor, Fred
Forsey (43), on corruption charges has
been hailed as a great victory by the
establishment although the party has maintained
a dignified silence in the whole affair. And why
wouldn’t they as the man from whom Forsey is
accused of accepting an €80,000 bribe is another
former Fine Gael councillor. Michael Ryan (60) is
also the owner of Al Eile stud farm in Kilgobnet
outside Dungarvan and of a famous race horse
of the same name and is expected to
appear on similar charges next year.
He owned the land which Forsey
convinced his fellow councillors to
rezone so that Ryan could develop it
for a tidy profit. It was only because
he fell out with his wife that Forsey
was rumbled and is now facing four
years in Midland Prison. Former
environment minister, John Gormley,
stopped the re-zoning.
What is shocking is not that a Fine
Gael councillor was found with his
hand in the till – it is that dozens, if
not more, have not been as success-
fully pursued by the Garda given what
emerged of Frank Dunlop’s corrupt
activities at the Mahon tribunal.
While the disgraced lobbyist bribed
his way across more than 15 controversial re-zon-
ings in Dublin in the 1980s and 1990s on behalf
of his various clients not one of them has been
properly held to account while Dunlop served less
than two years in jail. Developer, James Kennedy,
former FG senator, Liam T. Cosgrave and a hand-
ful of other former councillors are awaiting trial
based on Dunlop’s claims.
What is also disturbing is that an attempt
by Gormley to deal with the ever-growing list
of complaints about planning irregularities was
effectively suppressed by the new government
when it took office last year. A proposed inquiry
into questionable planning decisions in no less
than seven counties – Dublin city, Carlow, Cork
city and county, Donegal, Galway and Meath – was
underway before it was stifled by a combination of
civil service intransigence and a lack of political
enthusiasm on the part of the Government.
The story under review in Meath alone could
occupy a team of investigators for several months
as it is an intricate tale involving competing devel-
opers, planners, councillors, a leading soccer club
and even national politicians that ends up cover-
ing no-one in glory.
It is rooted in a proposal in 2004
by Drogheda Borough Council, and
Louth and Meath county councils, to
establish a new conurbation south
of Drogheda and inside the Meath
county boundary, incorporating
lands known as Bryanstown. A deci-
sion was also made that other lands
on the Mornington Road closer to
to Drogheda would remain reserved
and would not be developed until
long-term plans for the port in the
town were completed.
Wicklow-based developer, Bill
Doyle, recognised the potential of
the Bryanstown site and began to
assemble lands there after receiving
what he claimed were assurances
from Meath County manager, Tom Dowling, that
the proposals by the three local authorities would
proceed as envisaged. Doyle eventually purchased
124 acres and - in co-operation with other land-
owners - designed a major residential, retail and
industrial new town on the site. He also assisted
Drogheda United in securing new grounds on a
20-acre site adjoining the Bryanstown lands and
close to the M1 motorway which was to give the
successful soccer club a new lease of life. It was
agreed after discussions involving Doyle, his pro-
fessional advisers and the council management
that a variation of the county development plan
was the best way to achieve his objectives.
With millions borrowed from Anglo Irish Bank,
Doyle was then shocked to learn that some coun-
cillors were objecting to the completion of the East
Meath area plan, including the Bryanstown devel-
opment unless the reservation on the lands on the
Mornington Road was lifted.
These lands were controlled by Seamus
Murphy, a local builder and quarry-owner and
by Phil Reilly of Shannon Homes, a major house
builder in the Louth and Meath area. Shannon
Homes also developed a retail centre at Grange
Rath south of Drogheda. Reilly was also a politi-
cal supporter of local FF TD Thomas Byrne and
his father Thomas Byrne senior, an auctioneer
who sold the Shannon Homes properties over
many years.
The objections of the three local councillors
Jimmy Cudden (Ind), Pat Bushell (FF) and Thomas
Kelly who was a member of the Green Party until
it fell out with him out over his support for build-
ing houses on flood plains in county Meath, stalled
Zoning change
destroys new
town plan
Planning decisions in east Meath could occupy a
team of investigators for several months
ÄóÝ
Charles Stanley-Smyth, Niall Crowley and Siobhán
O’Donoghue at a Claiming our Future event
It is an
intricate tale
involving
developers,
planners and
councillors
that ends up
covering no-
one in glory
¨
19
the implementation of Doyle’s plan. An interven-
tion by then minister Dick Roche in August 2008,
who was connected through marriage to one of
the Bryanstown landowners and who wrote to the
county manager and minister Gormley, express-
ing his concerns, failed to break the deadlock.
Doyle was then shocked to learn that when
the final plan was eventually published in 2008
some 80 acres of his land bank at Bryanstown had
been de-zoned from residential to green space
and industrial making it commercially unviable to
proceed with the development. At the same time
the views of the three local councillors had pre-
vailed and the lands at the Mornington Road were
freed up for development to the potential benefit
of Phil Reilly and his business partners. According
to council officials, the decision to allow devel-
opment on Reilly’s site meant that the Drogheda
sewerage scheme could not accommodate the
scale of the Bryanstown proposal. With millions
in bank debts, Doyle was eventually forced to drop
the ambitious scheme while the plans by Drogheda
FC for a new playing and training facilities in a
modern stadium, surrounded by retail and other
commercial ventures, also collapsed even though
it had received planning permission from Meath
County Council.
Coming so close to the banking collapse any
plans by Shannon Homes to develop its lands also
went by the wayside with the result that both sites
are idle and unlikely to be developed any time
soon. The Bryanstown debacle was not the first to
invite controversy for Meath County Council and
its management. Last year, it was given a severe
reprimand by Judge Peter Kelly in the commercial
court over its treatment of another developer in
Ashbourne. The extraordinary decision to grant
permission to a developer to build a hotel within
the curtilage of historic Trim Castle in the early
years of the last decade has also been the subject
of much criticism. And it was exposed to signifi-
cant costs , and a forceful reprimand in a High
Court action a decade ago over its gross flouting
of its own population targets in its development
plan, where it prevailed only on a technicality. It is
not surprising that there is little appetite for more
official inquiries into planning and zoning given
the length and cost of the Mahon tribunal but it
remains the case that serious irregularities across
many counties involving councillors from vari-
ous parties and unelected officials at every level
within the local authorities have been identified
over many years.
The east Meath saga is replicated in other
counties around Dublin where population
growth around the capital dramatically increased
demand for housing and associated facilities dur-
ing the Celtic Tiger years. But the symptoms are
also evident in other counties from Donegal to
Cork where the Forsey scandal is clearly only
the tip of the iceberg when it comes to planning
corruption.
Frank Connolly is Head of Communications with
SIPTU and has written extensively on planning
corruption over many years
Charles Stanley-Smyth, Niall Crowley and Siobhán
O’Donoghue at a Claiming our Future event
Visitors at Al Eile stud
in Kilgobnet near Dungarvan
