The turmoil at An Bord Pleanála has spawned a sequence of investigations, examinations and evaluations for assorted authorities. To date, only one report has been printed.
- Remy Farrell SC was appointed in April by Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien to look at allegations made about Paul Hyde. Mr Farrell delivered his report in July. In August, it was despatched to the Garda, the Director of Public Prosecutions and the Requirements in Public Workplace Fee. It stays unpublished.
- Farrell’s report prompted a Garda investigation into Hyde’s conduct. The Garda submitted a file to the DPP in September, main the DPP to provoke a prosecution in opposition to Hyde in Dublin District Court docket. As is the norm in such circumstances, the Garda file has not been printed.
- An Bord Pleanála initiated an inner “fact-finding examination” of Hyde’s planning choices and different issues in April. Three senior officers delivered their report final week to Dave Walsh, An Bord Pleanála’s chairman. Walsh has mentioned the evaluate “didn’t contain any cross-checking or session with people or components of the organisation involved”. In gentle of authorized recommendation to the chairman, the October report from the inner evaluate stays unpublished.
- Walsh, the chairman, commissioned Resolve Eire, a consultancy, to hold out an “unbiased exterior investigation” into allegations made in opposition to An Bord Pleanála’s director of planning, Rachel Kenny. The Resolve Eire report stays unpublished. However Walsh has mentioned Kenny was discovered to have “no case to reply” in relation to claims of a battle of curiosity in sure choices. The report additionally cleared her of any breaches of the physique’s code of conduct, Walsh mentioned.
- The Workplace of the Planning Regulator initiated a proper evaluate of An Bord Pleanála’s techniques and procedures in August, after deciding in June to deliver ahead work that was initially scheduled to be completed subsequent yr. The conclusions from the primary part of this evaluate by Conleth Bradley SC and Scottish planning consultants Paul Cackette and John McNairney had been printed in early October, making it the primary and solely formal report back to be printed because the controversy erupted. The report for the regulator mentioned An Bord Pleanála wants “pressing reform” as a way to restore its public standing.
- A second report from the regulator’s evaluate is scheduled to be finalised by the tip of November, with a draft due on November 14th.