Majority stance for Mahon report

THE PLANNING tribunal has indicated that key findings it will make in its forthcoming report could be based on a majority decision of its three judges.

The tribunal says it is unnecessary for the three judges to agree on every line of a future report. Its content and the findings it makes will be based on either the unanimous or majority decision of the three judges.

The comments by chairman Judge Alan Mahon and his colleagues, Judge Mary Faherty and Judge Gerald Keys, are contained in a letter from tribunal solicitor Susan Gilvarry to The Irish Times.

This takes issue with an article published on Tuesday which stated that the three judges had put in considerable work to ensure they agreed on every line of the report.

The tribunal says this is incorrect and it also says the fact the report is being written by more than one judge has not added to the time involved in its preparation. “In fact, no significant additional time has resulted from the fact that the report is being written by ‘more than one judge’,” the letter states.

While the article suggested the delay in publishing the report was due in part to difficulties experienced by a three-judge inquiry in arriving at an agreed version of events, the tribunal says the judges have experienced no such difficulties.

According to the letter, all three judges have been fully engaged in the preparation of the final report over the past number of years and continue to be so engaged.

Ms Gilvarry says it is untrue to say, as the article did, that the judges have largely returned to court work. All three judges had been wholly engaged in preparing the tribunal’s final report “with the exception of a very small number of occasions over the past couple of years when, on an individual basis, each has sat in court because of an unexpected absence of another judge.”

The article reported that the publication of the multi-volume report had been delayed again and that it would not be published until the autumn. It also revealed tribunal lawyers had been paid €4.5 million in fees in the period since the inquiry held its last public hearing in December 2008.

The tribunal’s response does not address these points.

In her letter, Ms Gilvarry says it is not normally the tribunal’s practice to respond to media articles, but an exception has been made because parts of the article related to aspects of the preparation of the final report, and these contained incorrect information. “It is in relation to these references, and only these references, that this letter is written,” she adds.