Ethics and legal units to be set up in Ireland’s planning appeals body

The Government has published its plan to reform Ireland’s planning appeals body, which includes setting up an ethics unit and an in-house legal department.

After a report from the Office of the Planning Regulator (OPR) into An Bord Pleanala, published on Tuesday, the Government accepted a number of recommendations, including establishing a legal affairs director to head a new legal unit, and a marine and climate planning director.

“In order to uphold trust in the planning system and maintain its ongoing functionality, the minister has concluded that a range of actions are now required,” a statement said, following Cabinet approval for an action plan to reform An Bord Pleanala.

The Government said it would establish a governance, ethics and compliance unit and an ethics officer to report to the chair of the board, as recommended by the OPR.

A new code of conduct is “urgently required”, the OPR said. The action plan said it would be issued in mid-November to provide “sufficient unambiguous guidance”.

The report said the mechanism allowing board meetings with a quorum of two people “must be permanently removed”, and quorums of five “should be made essential” for certain planning decisions.

The action plan accepts that quorums of two people should be abolished, and said the minimum should be set at three, accepting there would be “further limits” for specific decisions.

As board member appointments have been frozen while the process is overhauled, the report said temporary board members should be directly appointed by the Minister for Housing to ensure the board can function in the meantime.

It also said that the practice of individual board members presenting planning cases at board meetings “must cease”, and the inspector who prepared the planning report should present the report, or another “appropriately delegated person”.

The action plan said it would “implement” this recommendation, adding: “These changes will be borne in mind for any required legislative underpinning in the context of the planning legislative review.”

These are among 11 recommendations in the OPR report, which is the first phase of its review.

The report was provided to the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, and the chairman of An Bord Pleanala, Dave Walsh, on September 19 for their consideration.

The report was finalised on Monday and published on Tuesday.

Mr O’Brien told reporters in Dublin on Tuesday that the recommendations in the OPR review were “sensible” and it was “crucially important” that confidence is restored in An Bord Pleanala.  

“Earlier today, I brought a further memo along with the general scheme of the Bill which will change how appointments are made to the board and remove the archaic system… the list system, the nomination system, that needs to be reviewed.”

He said he instructed the board to cease the two-person panels, and that the number of board members would increase from nine to 15.

“So there’s significant change under way. I’ve secured additional funds into next year for additional people, additional human resources in the board. That’s on top of the extra posts I granted this year because we need to make sure that the board’s fit for purpose, having a legal adviser sitting on the board that would report back to me monthly.

“We’re proceeding in relation to the establishment of the marine planning unit which will underpin the development that we need, in particular in relation to offshore renewable energy, and that’s proceeding as well.

“So the memo today is a significant one. The Bill will be will be worked through and then published and brought to the House expected to be passed before the end of this year.”

In August, Mr O’Brien referred an independent report by barrister Remy Farrell into decisions at An Bord Pleanala to the Director of Public Prosecutions, the Garda and the Standards in Public Office.

This report is one of several probes into allegations of conflicts of interest in relation to An Bord Pleanala.

External experts Conleth Bradley SC, Paul Cackette and John McNairney made contributions to the OPR report, led by the director of planning reviews Gary Ryan.

Mr Cackette, a former chief planning reporter to the Scottish Government, said An Bord Pleanala “faces multiple and complex challenges to restore public confidence”.

“In our work on phase one of this review, we conclude that without major reform, An Bord Pleanala will find it increasingly difficult to function effectively,” he said.

“We recognise the many strengths of An Bord Pleanala’s expertise as demonstrated in the past. However, in our work and in our recommendations, we have focused on urgently identifying systems and procedures which are not, at present, adequate.”

John McNairney, a former chief planner at the Scottish Government, said he was confident the appeals body “can be recovered”.

“We believe that the implementation of the recommendations, in addition to recommendations that will arise from the second review phase, will help to ensure that An Bord Pleanala’s decision-making is underpinned by robust and effective systems and procedures.”

The second report of the OPR review will be delivered by the end of November, the appeals body said.