Hearings into 20 parcels of land will be divided into modules

The Flood tribunal is to hold public hearings into allegations of planning corruption concerning 20 separate parcels of land, it has been announced.

The tribunal plans to investigate 30 separate matters during the course of 20 "modules" of investigation that are expected to last at least two years.

Much of the evidence will be "technical, detailed, turgid and hard-to-follow", Mr John Gallagher SC, for the tribunal, warned yesterday.

Mr Gallagher was delivering an opening statement at the start of the hearings into allegations of planning corruption in the greater Dublin area. The first of the investigations will deal with attempts to rezone over 120 acres of land at Carrickmines during the 1990s.

In his statement, Mr Gallagher reviewed the work of the tribunal so far. Some 24,000 copies of the interim report of the tribunal have been sold in hard copy, and 2,000 in CD-ROM form, since it was published in September. In addition, 64,000 copies have been downloaded from the Internet.

The tribunal has sat for 337 days so far. It has received over one million documents, including 610 files containing 90,000 pages in the past week alone. So far, 190 witnesses have given evidence in public, and 530 people have been formally interviewed by tribunal lawyers. Some 8,400 orders for discovery have been issued.

Counsel outlined the tribunal's plans to investigate rezoning activities in Dublin. It plans to break down its work on a modular basis, with each module dealing with a separate parcel of land. Afterwards, evidence will be heard about the financial records of the individuals concerned.

Any other approach would see the tribunal lost in a forest of repetition, he said. The tribunal was determined to be fair to everyone and would adopt a flexible approach where warranted.

Some allegations relate to events that took place in the 1960s, but most of the matters will date from the 1980s.

Mr Gallagher said the evidence would be that, in some cases, money was paid directly by landowners or developers to county councillors. In other cases, the money was paid to councillors through an intermediary or lobbyist, who was employed to obtain the support of a sufficient number of councillors to secure a rezoning. In yet other cases, payments were demanded by councillors themselves.

The Planning and Development Act 1963, which is the cornerstone of modern planning, was solely concerned that planning should take place in the name of "the common good".

Mr Gallagher said it did not refer to the interests of landowners, speculators, councillors, politicians, party supporters and contributors or donors, or any other "sectional or narrow interest". The planning acts were not devised to provide people with a cost-effective way of dramatically increasing the value of land by rezoning. Neither did they create a hierarchy of interests between different groups.

Whether councillors acted in good faith or in the common interest would be one of the matters the tribunal would be investigating, he said.

Mr Gallagher set out the administrative structure of local government in Dublin and the manner in which the county councils operated. On January 1st, Dublin County Council was replaced by three separate local authorities covering Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown, South Dublin and Fingal.