Planning tribunal says work will take 11 years

The Planning tribunal said today it will take another 11 years to conclude its inquiry unless it gets more resources and its terms of reference are changed.

In its Fourth Interim Report, published this morning, the tribunal requested  a change in its terms of reference to allow it to concentrate on some inquiries and ignore others.

Judge Alan Mahon said the tribunal had conducted a "comprehensive audit of its current workload and its likely future workload" and decided it will not be able to finish public hearings into the various modules under investigation until at least 2008.

The tribunal estimates the current inquiry, the Arlington/Quarryvale 1 module, will be completed at the end of next month. The tribunal, which was today hearing a second day of applications for costs to Mr Ray Burke and other parties against whom findings of corruption were made, is to continue hearing evidence in this module tomorrow after being suspended last month ahead of the European and local elections.

After the Quarryvale module, the tribunal will resume the Carrickmines investigation, followed by the second phase of the Quarryvale inquiry. This is expected to be completed some time next year.

The report says once all the modules are heard, the three-judge tribunal panel  will need time to hold  hearings on compliance issues and submissions from the public before it even begins to compile its final report. The publication of this report would then be followed by a number of submissions on costs, meaning it will be 2009 before the tribunal can begin the next phase of its inquiry.

Further inquiries into alleged corruption in Dublin county council and other  authorities will take at least four years to complete, followed by more submissions and hearings on costs. "The likely timescale for the completion of all the tribunal's currently identified workload is probably in the region of ten or eleven years," Judge Mahon said.

The terms of reference under which the tribunal was established are also criticised in the interim report for contributing to the massive workload.

The "great majority" of complaints received are outside the tribunal's terms of reference. However, "tens of thousands" of pages of documents have to be studied by legal staff to decide which information is within its remit. "The workload involved in the preliminary investigative phase is significantly greater than the workload involved in the work of the tribunal in public," the report states.

Judge Mahon said he and his two colleagues, Judge Mary Faherty and Judge Gerald Keyes, want the terms of reference changed to give the tribunal more discretion over which allegations it should investigate. It wants to be able to decide whether or not to investigate on a case-by-case basis, taking such factors as the level of corruption, the likley amount of time required, the cost  and the likelihood of reaching a conclusion into consideration.

Although it has a staff of six barristers, three solicitors, four researchers and two paralegal staff, the tribunal has applied to the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Mr Cullen, for leave to employ more personnel. Judge Mahon said the current legal team is "stretched to its limits, if not beyond".

If the tribunal does not get more staff,  Judge Mahon warns, the estimate of concluding its work by 2015 will not be achieved. The Minister is considering the request, the report notes.

The tribunal also says it may be forced to hold three concurrent inquiries, each headed by one of the three judges in order to speed up its operation.

It warns that any subdivision of the tribunal into two or three separate divisions will require "substantial additional resources".

Interim reports are released sporadically by the tribunal to the Dáil to keep it informed of the work of the inquiry and its likely duration. The last such report was published in September 2002.