Green Party leader accuses Ministers over planning inquiries

MINISTER FOR the Environment Phil Hogan has been accused by the Green Party of “misleading the public” by claiming that his predecessor, John Gormley, had failed to progress inquiries into alleged planning irregularities in seven local authorities.

Green Party leader Eamon Ryan said it was “unacceptable and damaging to politics” when Mr Hogan and other Ministers “deliberately mislead the public by claiming that Mr Gormley had done nothing to progress his independent reviews of planning practices in a number of local authorities”.

Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin commented: “The parade of half excuses, misdirection and simple untruths that have emerged from a range of Government Ministers defending the suppression [of these inquiries] has been extraordinary”.

Ryan Meade, former special adviser to Mr Gormley, said an “extensive dossier” – prepared by planning officials in the Department of the Environment following an internal review of complaints – was on Mr Hogan’s desk when he took office last March.

There was also a series of reports from the managers in each of the local authorities, submitted in response to a formal request from Mr Gormley, as well as the terms of reference for planning consultants to carry out independent reviews in the selected local authorities.

Mr Meade said a tender process to select this panel of consultants had been completed and letters of appointment were ready to be issued to them. But these letters had been “held back by the department” after Mr Gormley resigned from office in January 2011.

Mr Hogan claimed in the Dáil on Tuesday that the Fianna Fáil-Green Party coalition “did not attach the same priority to addressing issues in the planning system” as the present Government and that, having announced inquiries in June 2010, Mr Gormley had “not commenced any”.

But Mr Meade issued a detailed chronology, showing that various complaints about planning practices in a number of local authorities had been received, but there was “no process” for dealing with these.

In 2009, he recalled, Mr Gormley asked the department to examine the complaints “with a view to developing a more robust system of dealing with information brought to his attention concerning planning practices” and also requested a report from Donegal County Council. In November 2009, an internal review of complaints against 11 local authorities was completed by planning officials, and a dossier containing the department’s analysis of each complaint was provided to Mr Gormley.

Last June, the then minister issued formal requests for reports from the managers of Dublin and Cork city councils, as well as Carlow, Cork, Galway and Meath county councils.

These reports were submitted in July; a report on Donegal County Council had already been submitted. This was followed in September by a tender for appointment to the panel of expert planners to carry out reviews. In January 2011, Mr Gormley approved the department’s recommended panel and the issuing of letters of appointment. The letters were never issued, however.

Instead, after taking office as minister of state for housing and planning, Willie Penrose (Labour) decided to carry out another internal review, to avoid “very considerable cost”. Mr Hogan told the Dáil: “A report will be finalised in early May [2011] and Minister of State [Jan] O’Sullivan will be issuing a public statement on the matter at that time, including details of any further actions considered necessary.”