Lorna Lynch SC conducted the final interview in her investigation into An Bord Pleanála governance last February. Now the planning body has finally released summary conclusions from her July report. The Minister for Housing will not be asked to consider whether board members engaged in “stated misbehaviour”. No employee will face disciplinary action. After prolonged turmoil, will this be enough to restore the standing of An Bord Pleanála?
For fear of legal challenge, the Lynch report will not be published. Citing extensive inquiries over 20 months, An Bord Pleanála chairman Peter Mullan expressed hope that the Lynch conclusions will be a “line in the sand”. But summary findings from a 130-page document tell only part of the story. The substance of what she found was not published – just the conclusion that further action in relation to individuals was not required.
An unpublished internal report in 2022 found concerns raised about the handling of certain cases had “a factual substance”. After serious damage to An Bord Pleanála’s reputation, we are now told the only matter meeting the threshold for Ministerial intervention was incorrect statutory declarations behind the conviction of former deputy chairman Paul Hyde. Hyde is long gone so Mullan said referral would serve no purpose.
At issue is the board’s credibility as independent arbiter of planning appeals and applications. One question was an unnamed board member’s role as a decision-maker in applications when they had a “familial relationship” with a company director involved as an applicant. Lynch found there were not sufficient grounds for Ministerial referral. It was the same in relation to an anomaly showing a “very significant number of two-person board decisions”, rather than the usual three. She also investigated “the vast majority” of phone mast files being decided by two board members and a “greater level of overturning inspectors’ recommendations” to refuse permission. The anomaly was “not desirable” but she accepted there was a changing policy more supportive of masts.
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Also examined was an unnamed board member’s involvement in files where they were alleged to be in a personal relationship with “one or more” board employees working on the files. Mullan was “not in a position” to investigate conditional Lynch findings on the timing of one relationship. That leaves questions, although board rules on the disclosure of certain personal relationships have since tightened.
Mullan insists nothing emerged to cast doubt over the outcome in 175 planning files under review. That may be the most critical point of all, yet the summary findings now available leave little scope to test this assertion. The new legislation to overhaul and rename a strengthened board as An Coimisiún Pleanála opens a path to rebuild confidence. But it should never have come to this.
