Planning control: are there laws or mere aspirations in the process?

The tradition of clientelist politics lies at the root of failure to enforce the planning laws, writes Frank McDonald

There is nothing new about clientelist politicians intervening in the planning process by making "representations" on behalf of their constituents. Because making representations is what most of them do, most of the time.

So when it came to a problem with an illegal quarrying operation in Co Roscommon it was only natural that the Taoiseach would write a letter urging the county council to go easy on the poor unfortunate quarry-owners.

A year ago this week it was reported in The Irish Times that the Minister for Finance, Mr McCreevy, had made representations to Kildare County Council on behalf of a solicitor who had built an unauthorised house near Kilcock.

The Dublin-based solicitor had applied for permission to retain a large two-storey house at Ballycaghan, and Mr McCreevy, a local TD, wrote a letter on Department of Finance-headed notepaper urging the council's planners to consider it.

Planning permission to retain the unauthorised development was subsequently refused on several grounds, including the precedent it would set.

But although the council said it was taking legal action, the offending house is still standing.

The Kildare county secretary, Mr Charlie Talbot, emphatically denied at the time that political pressure was hindering enforcement action in this case, as alleged by An Taisce. He said: "An Taisce is wrong and will be seen to be wrong."

Yesterday, a full year later, he told The Irish Times that the county council was still awaiting a date for a court hearing, although he anticipated that this would be early in the new year. "The issue is moving on. We have not been sleeping on it," he said.

The Taoiseach's intervention on behalf of the owners of an unauthorised quarrying operation near Athleague, Co Roscommon, was clearly designed to forestall legal action by the county council to enforce the planning laws in this case.

Although the quarry has been in operation for many years, local residents - many living in new bungalows built in the area - had been complaining for some time about blasting and about lorry-loads of excavated material leaving the site every day.

They also claimed that the county council itself had purchased - perhaps unwittingly - gravel from the quarry for work to improve the Roscommon stretch of the N4. No spokesman was available yesterday to comment on this allegation.

But then, as Friends of the Irish Environment has pointed out, Section 261 of the 2000 Planning Act requiring the registration of all quarries has still not been implemented, more than two years after the Act came into force.

There are wheels within wheels. One of the Murray brothers owns the Athleague quarry, another is a local Fianna Fáil activist and former councillor. Another, apparently, is a resident of Dublin Central and one of the Taoiseach's constituents.

So, of course, he dropped into Bertie Ahern's busy "clinic" in Drumcondra after Roscommon County Council had issued the Athleague quarry-operators with an enforcement notice under the 2000 Planning Act, requiring them to desist.

Within a month of the enforcement notice being served, the county council had received a letter signed by the Taoiseach requesting that any further action be deferred because Mr Brian Murray was undergoing chemotherapy treatment for cancer.

According to Senator Cyprian Brady, who runs Mr Ahern's constituency office, it was a "humanitarian gesture" and there was no question of interfering in the planning process.

And sure hadn't Senator Terry Leyden also made representations?

But what would any council official make of letters from the Taoiseach or the Minister for Finance except that they were, indeed, using their positions in an effort to bring about a favourable outcome for one or other of their constituents?

Yet it was the Government of which both of them are members that piloted through the Oireachtas a consolidated Planning Act that was meant, among many other things, to usher in a new era in relation to enforcing the planning laws.

The Planning Act ostensibly introduced a much tougher enforcement regime. Fines for unauthorised development were increased to £10 million for convictions on indictment and from £1,000 to £1,500 for summary convictions in District Courts.

The Act also attempted to remedy what was seen as a serious deficiency in the planning system by placing an onus on local authorities to follow up complaints from the public about breaches of development control within a given time-frame.

Previously, local authorities were not required by statute to take any action in relation to unauthorised developments. As with so many other things in Ireland, a blind eye was turned - even towards flagrant breaches of the planning laws.

Quarries have always been among the worst offenders. Many of the sand and gravel quarries operating throughout the State either have no planning permission at all or are operating in breach of planning conditions.

Yet little is done about it.

And even less will be done if politicians continue to abuse their positions in an effort to fix things for constituents who end up on the wrong side of the law. Or is it the time-old problem in Ireland of regarding legislation as aspirational in character?

The Roscommon county manager, Mr John Tiernan, has said that there is no question about the illegality of the Athleague operation. A small quarry had been intensified in terms of its use, and this requires its owners to obtain planning permission.

He also confirmed that quarrying at the site was continuing on November 15th, a month after the enforcement notice was served on the owners. That was what a council inspector found just two days after the Taoiseach's letter was received.

It is, of course, open to Roscommon County Council to seek a High Court injunction to halt quarrying at Athleague until the position is regularised by the owners making a planning application.

But the council has not done so, at least not yet.

The former ombudsman, Mr Kevin Murphy, has said there is a "marked reluctance" on the part of local authorities to take developers to court, as they are mandated to do, for breaching the terms of planning permissions or building illegally.

This "increases public cynicism and the tendency to give credence to unfounded allegations of corruption and conflicts of interest on the part of public officials", Mr Murphy said, though, as the tribunals have shown, some of these allegations happen to be true.

What's the point of having planning laws unless there is a commitment to enforce them, especially at the highest levels of government?

Otherwise, we might just as well say: "You can build whatever you like, wherever you like, and there'll be no one stopping you".