Why did Phil Hogan stop 5 seperate planning enquiries?

MadsL

Some pressure being applied here;

I think the point about the household charge may be a good pressure point to apply to Hogan; give us an independent inquiry and we will give you the €100 household charge...

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/columnists/martina-devlin/martina-devlin-big-phil-must-risk-opening-can-of-worms-on-planning-3064935.html

With regards to Dublin, I find it of note that John Tierney immediately went on the attack when An Taisce's compliant was lodged;

Environment Minister John Gormley appointed an inspector to review Dublin City Council’s planning performance on foot of a 'dossier' compiled by An Taisce, which claimed that it was operating in breach of the city development plan.

In a letter to Mr Gormley last October, Ian Lumley and Kevin Duff of An Taisce alleged the council had 'acted systematically in disregarding' the plan, contravened ministerial planning guidelines and shown 'serious impropriety in the conduct of its functions'.
Assistant city manager Michael Stubbs, who is in charge of planning and economic development, said the council would be responding to the dossier by July 16th. Fine Gael councillor Rory McGinley said the An Taisce dossier was “over the top”.

An Taisce claimed unnamed senior officials had been 'encouraging landowners and developers to lodge planning applications [for high-rise buildings] in breach of the Dublin City Development Plan and ministerial guidelines'.

http://www.enviro-solutions.com/dailynews/050710-dcc-an-taisce-pp.htm

I personally was in a meeting where one of the developers concerned made that claim that he was encouraged to 'lodge planning applications [for high-rise buildings] in breach of the Dublin City Development Plan and ministerial guidelines' Attempts to get the minutes for those meetings failed, even after promises were made to ABP at an Oral Hearing.

Yet, Tierney responds not with co-operation and willingness to investigate; but with wrath.

Dublin's city manager has lashed the country's heritage trust, accusing it of making serious slurs against his staff and grossly misrepresenting the facts about planning in the capital.

John Tierney has accused An Taisce of writing letters filled with "substantial inaccuracies, misrepresentations and unsubstantiated allegations" to the Environment Minister.

http://www.enviro-solutions.com/dailynews/210710-dcc-an-taisce.htm

Tierney claims that this complaint contains “gross misinterpretation” of facts and slurs against the integrity of council officials. So one would think that a rebuttal on the specifics and the production of meeting notes for the meetings with developers would be the appropriate response.

The nettle Tierney fails to grasp is the fact that the An Taisce report linked to specific planning decisions shown not only to be in breach of the Dublin Development Plan, but also upheld by ABP on appeal. The 23 cases - 15 of which were overturned on appeal. Each one was documented in the complaint. To rebut this - all Tierney had to produce was the evidence.

Instead, bizarrely, Tierney seems to think he is the MoE; "Mr Tierney said he would not comment on each case because of the “legislative position” where the Minister does not involve himself in individual planning applications."

http://buckplanning.blogspot.com/2010/07/taisce-accused-of-slur-against-council.html


Again, you couldn't make it up. Don't we deserve an explanation?

MadsL

Dail debate;

http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2012-03-28.2.0

Mr.Micro

MadsL wrote: »

Dail debate;

http://www.kildarestreet.com/debates/?id=2012-03-28.2.0

This from your link

Micheál Martin (Leader of the Opposition; Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

He stated that effective planning enforcement to ensure legislation was observed “was not in place” in Carlow.

That is absolutely true. It was a free for all in Carlow, a DIY planning for some, any building project, no matter how big or wrong, or wherever, could get the go ahead. It was like the planning department was not even there.

Unless FG sort this County Council business it will come back to haunt them.

KyussBishop

I've been mentioning in a few threads lately, some burgeoning ideas for enforced transparency on the government, and these planning meetings are a perfect example of where such transparency could be applied with extreme effectiveness.

It is so easy to do, there is no excuse not to; you would have a central public website which is a repository for all information released under transparency laws, which anyone can access without restriction.

In the case of planning cases, the meetings must not only be mandatory to record, but for the planning permissions to be valid at all, all information must be completely published online, with a grace period where people can object.


If this were enforced, and any other details in the public interest forced to be published on this repository, it would provide the public with an objective way of highlighting corruption, instead of having to rely on hearsay (even if zoning info is not published due to corruption, you can point to the fact that rezoned property is not in the repository as evidence).

It should be perfectly manageable, to have on this website, a 100% realtime system displaying the countries current property zoning for all land (e.g. as a google maps overlay), and a wiki-like system for making changes to this map, such that no change can be made without it being visible in history, and any change not on this map is 100% invalid.

It would cost money to setup in the first place, but once it is setup it would provide 100% public oversight of planning; it wouldn't be foolproof, but it would provide a pretty strong system.

MadsL

KyussBishop wrote: »

I've been mentioning in a few threads lately, some burgeoning ideas for enforced transparency on the government, and these planning meetings are a perfect example of where such transparency could be applied with extreme effectiveness.

It is so easy to do, there is no excuse not to; you would have a central public website which is a repository for all information released under transparency laws, which anyone can access without restriction.

In the case of planning cases, the meetings must not only be mandatory to record, but for the planning permissions to be valid at all, all information must be completely published online, with a grace period where people can object.


If this were enforced, and any other details in the public interest forced to be published on this repository, it would provide the public with an objective way of highlighting corruption, instead of having to rely on hearsay (even if zoning info is not published due to corruption, you can point to the fact that rezoned property is not in the repository as evidence).

It should be perfectly manageable, to have on this website, a 100% realtime system displaying the countries current property zoning for all land (e.g. as a google maps overlay), and a wiki-like system for making changes to this map, such that no change can be made without it being visible in history, and any change not on this map is 100% invalid.

It would cost money to setup in the first place, but once it is setup it would provide 100% public oversight of planning; it wouldn't be foolproof, but it would provide a pretty strong system.

AGREED!!

Dublin city used to have an excellent mapping system because you could see previous permissions online easily, as well as new applications. They tinkered with it, broke it, fixed it, broke it again, now are on about the fourth different system in as many years.

Their planning search will now not work on keyworks nor will it search and sort by application date.

The fact that every county council have their own IT systems for planning is absurd as well, and still not all have this online. One centralised system operating on the same systems would save millions in server and support costs.

As to 100% public oversight of planning - could we then stop vilifying people who volunteer to spend considerable hours trying the plug the gap that is left by the fact that there is no planning ombudsman or regulator - just an appeals process. We just saw this Thursday a Councillor in Galway going off on Galway FM with the most absurd allegations about those who tackle planning matters locally.

MadsL

Press Release 31st March 2012
“Why we called for the Investigation of Dublin City Council’s Planning Record – An Taisce”
The publication of the Mahon report has seen renewed calls for investigations into the planning matters of local authorities by An Taisce and others. In 2009 An Taisce called for the investigation of Dublin City Council’s planning record and subsequently it became one of seven local authorities under investigation by former minister for the environment John Gormley, this initiative being later reduced to an in-house investigated by his successor, Phil Hogan, which is a matter of some current political concern.

In the case of Dublin City Council, the issue at play was the extraordinary number of its major planning decisions subsequently overturned or substantially changed on appeal. Its appalling planning record was the subject of a dossier complaint by An Taisce in 2009, detailing 23 cases where its decisions clearly conflicted with the City Development Plan and/or Architectural Heritage Guidelines.

The economic boom in Dublin was an unprecedented period. With reckless bank lending came an onslaught of over-scaled and over-dense development proposals for over-valued sites in Dublin city centre. Through the exercise of its prescribed body role, An Taisce was afforded a unique insight on the whole process.

The record shows that, instead of carefully guiding proposals to ensure proper planning and sustainable development, Dublin City Council systemically disregarded its own Development Plan and other guidelines by approving the majority of development in this period, with An Bord Pleanála acting as a sort of safety valve to curtail and overturn its worst excesses.

It was vitally important that there was a body such as An Taisce to monitor what was going on during this period and send plans to appeal, if necessary, to An Bord Pleanála, who are the final decision makers in planning.

A great defining characteristic of inner-city Dublin is its historic or “human” scale – street after street with a consistent four- to five-storey building scale, occasionally punctuated by larger public buildings and churches - an enviable characteristic for any old city to maintain and worth jealously guarding.

Dublin’s north and south Georgian cores are an internationally significant historic urban area, and led in 2009 to Dublin’s submission for consideration to the international heritage body UNESCO.

For these reasons, the scale and character of the historic city is afforded significant protection through the designations of Conservation Areas, Protected Structures, archaeological zones and building height restriction.

But time and time again during the boom, Dublin City Council accommodated and even encouraged development proposals grossly out of proportion to their surroundings and in breach of the Development Plan, including several high-rise buildings within the historic city core.

As part of a major planned redevelopment of Arnotts department store, Henry Street (in 2006), it permitted a sixteen-storey tower at the corner of Middle Abbey Street and Upper Liffey Street (reduced to a six/seven-storey scale on appeal) in breach of the high buildings restriction for the city centre.

Its approval of the ‘park in the sky’ for the former Carlton Cinema site on Upper O’Connell Street in 2008 was also reversed by An Bord Pleanála, who cited the policy for the Architectural Conservation Area that new development should respect the established scale, as well as changing numerous other features of the scheme for this key site incorporating the 1916 National Monument at Moore Street.

Also overturned on appeal was the permission given by the City Council for an eleven-storey tower on the site of the former Motor Taxation Office on Chancery Street, soaring above the great drum and dome of the Four Courts, as well as many other schemes in locations like Smithfield, Infirmary Road, Parkgate Street, Bridgefoot Street, the Digital Hub, Fleet Street, Harcourt Terrace`and Hatch Street Lower.

In Dublin 4, City Council approvals for high-profile redevelopments of the former Jury's Hotel and Veterinary College sites, which had changed hands for record sums of money, were substantially amended or refused by An Bord Plenála in order to comply with the provisions of the City Development Plan.

The intervention of An Taisce in protecting the scale and harmony of the city in this period was vital and especially if Dublin is to join the select company of Venice, Rome, Prague, Vienna and, nearer to it, its two great sister Georgian cities, Bath and Edinburgh, as a World Heritage Site.

An Taisce Ends

Download Dossier complaint re Dublin City Council planning decisions - An Taisce 2009.pdf

one foot in the grave

later12 wrote: »

Apparently the inquiries have not been stopped, there is going to be an internal investigation.

Anyone who is interested in governmental corruption (i.e. the study of it!) ought to be eternally perturbed by two of the most horrid words that were ever placed side by side in the English language: "internal investigation".

There may well turn out to be no basis for the allegations referred to. Fantastic. But transparency is important. Corruption thrives on strongly discretionary institutions kept in check by weak, opaque institutions.

Mahon wrote a big book on this. I think there was something about it on the news.

It's getting more and more fishy.

Stephen O'Brien (Political Editor) reporting in The Sunday Times today claims to have seen files showing that senior officials in the Department of the Environment have now found no evidence of "corruption or maladministration" in the seven counties identified by Gormley (these were identified after a previous internal review in 2010 ordered by Gormley).

No grounds for an independent planning investigations have been found.

John Burke in the Sunday Business Post reports that Gormley was considering using specially appointed officers to compel certain evidence that would not have been available to an internal departmental inquiry without specific ministerial intervention.

He also reports that no additional interviews or documentation have been sought from officials at Carlow County Council in the lifetime of this current government.

Either Mahon was way way off the mark or .........?

dacoll1

Phil Hogan won't investigate because Fine Gael are as bad as Fianna Fail and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. If they ever get around to it then Donegal needs investigated as well with special emphasis on Inishowen and the goings on that happened there and is still happening.

femur61

dacoll1 wrote: »

Phil Hogan won't investigate because Fine Gael are as bad as Fianna Fail and turkeys don't vote for Christmas. If they ever get around to it then Donegal needs investigated as well with special emphasis on Inishowen and the goings on that happened there and is still happening.

It is very suspect, but then again if he had something to hide he wouldn't have displayed such arrogance during household tax debacle , mind you didn't P. Flynn show similar arrogance.

Sierra Oscar

There are some explosive revelations about Phil Hogan in today's Examiner on the front-page. It turns out that he held a comprehensive meeting with Michael Lowry immediately after the publication of the Moriarty Tribunal, the longest meeting he has held with a TD to date.

Cardinal Richelieu

Turning out to be FG worst performing Minister, he had the septic tank charge and the Household Charge to deliver and messed up both. Communication management was terrible.

When does Enda start his famous pre-election promise of performance reviews? Or is that one of these election promises that Enda hopes we forget?

Mr.Micro

Cardinal Richelieu wrote: »

Turning out to be FG worst performing Minister, he had the septic tank charge and the Household Charge to deliver and messed up both. Communication management was terrible.

When does Enda start his famous pre-election promise of performance reviews? Or is that one of these election promises that Enda hopes we forget?

There appears to be a terrible arrogance about Phil Hogan. He has lost his lustre and will only decline further in peoples opinion if he continues to be high and mighty.

WolfgangWeisen

I'm a Fine Gael supporter and have voted for them since I could, however I do not trust Phil Hogan. He has made a mess of a number of things now, has driven public resentment against both the party and government and has carried it with an air of ungiving arrogance.

If Enda keeps him in the seat, he'll be the undoing of all the good work Fine Gael have done to grow the party since their last time in Government.

woodoo

I think Phil Hogan is bad news. I wouldn't trust him in the slightest. Complete hypocrite (Portuguese holiday home tax??) and a nasty piece of work if you ask me.

Sierra Oscar

Planning review finds 'no abuses'

The investigations have now been officially torpedoed - the story has managed to sneak through amid the Wallace scandal and the growing Eurozone crisis.

Phil Hogan is likely to say that he has been up every tree in Dublin and beyond and could not find any evidence of wrongdoing. The more cynical minded argue that perhaps the investigations were getting too close to certain quarters for certain individuals.

You can be sure it will all come out eventually anyways - it always does.

MadsL

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

Planning review finds 'no abuses'

The investigations have now been officially torpedoed - the story has managed to sneak through amid the Wallace scandal and the growing Eurozone crisis.

Phil Hogan is likely to say that he has been up every tree in Dublin and beyond and could not find any evidence of wrongdoing. The more cynical minded argue that perhaps the investigations were getting too close to certain quarters for certain individuals.

You can be sure it will all come out eventually anyways - it always does.

...and Ireland remains morally as well as financially bankrupt. Shame on Hogan, he was spoonfed instances of highly questionable planning decisions and shat himself at the thought of having to turn in his own. FG just put the cherry on the top of sentiment that they are just a dodgy as FF.

Pathetic lack of backbone.

one foot in the grave

Minister Jan O'Sullivan said the review's findings vindicated the decision of her predecessor, Minister Willie Penrose, not to “rush headlong into appointing seven external planning consultants to embark on costly, open-ended inquiries.” RTE news reported that Minister Jan O’Sullivan said that the review had found no evidence of criminality or corruption, but had found areas that were not well administered.

Labour Minister Joan Burton, after the Mahon Trirunal Report was published, said that the basic rules of planning were contravened due to the corruption which permeated the various levels of the process. So, which is it?

Absolutely disgraceful decision by Fine Gael and Labour.

Wider Road

Where is Raymon & co when you need them?

raymon

Thanks wider road

I am equally disgusted by this .

Just because I dislike corrupt FF practices doesn't mean that I condone corruption by other parties.

I challenge anyone with info to go to the Gardai without delay, rather than hint and make veiled references .

Why is this not happening ???

Let's get them convicted of something whoever it is.

MadsL

raymon wrote: »

Why is this not happening ???
.

Because it will take a widespread root and branch investigation to uncover all the planning abuses. Gardai will not be able to act unless they have hard evidence, the abuses are the soft corruption culture built up over the years.

KyussBishop

Very good article outlining the previous status of these inquiries and how they progressed in the previous government up to current:
http://www.villagemagazine.ie/index.php/2012/06/how-could-any-government-seriously-claim-that-mahon-planning-abuses-confined-to-dublin/

It seems there's little reason to have any faith in the current government doing any credible investigation of this, is there any room for direct investigative journalism with these planning authorities, seeking out whistleblowers and gathering/publishing information? (effectively doing a journalistic investigation instead of an inevitably whitewashed government one)

I know journalistic investigations would be difficult through not having any inside access to people/information, but is there much potential room for seeking out whistleblowers and the like, who could pass on information and documents?


Personally, I have very little faith in the ability of government and the primary journalistic outlets to uncover (or even have the desire to do so) any specific instances of corruption here, so I wonder if it may be more manageable to gather individuals on a volunteer basis (budding investigative journalists, maybe even established ones with a principled history), to try and uncover more of this directly as unpaid work.

If something like this could be organized, with an effective set of investigative volunteers, it would not be at risk of being shut down at the whim of some minister or (when it comes to traditional media) other vested interests; the main thing to worry about would be people involved being subject to legal or other threats.

One big downside of any journalistic outlet like that, is it may be subject to libel for anything it publishes, thus would probably need significant financial help for that; could probably partner up with a more credible news organization (probably not one from Ireland) and publish through them with legal backing.

Mr.Micro

MadsL wrote: »

...and Ireland remains morally as well as financially bankrupt. Shame on Hogan, he was spoonfed instances of highly questionable planning decisions and shat himself at the thought of having to turn in his own. FG just put the cherry on the top of sentiment that they are just a dodgy as FF.

Pathetic lack of backbone.

I will bet most people in every County know of several instances where corrupt planning was granted and re-zoning of lands. Hogan downgraded full external investigations to internal reviews....to be carried out by no doubt, the same people who were under investigation. Its is no wonder they all gave themselves a clean bill of health. Disgusting, and so much for FG and its clean politics. The rotten apples are still in place in all the County Councils, and ready to go again should the opportunities arise.

Hogan will not be getting my vote in future.

thebman

One big downside of any journalistic outlet like that, is it may be subject to libel for anything it publishes, thus would probably need significant financial help for that; could probably partner up with a more credible news organization (probably not one from Ireland) and publish through them with legal backing.

Kind of ignoring three bias the media have that is the property supplement aren't you.

That is the real downside and RTE won't get involved for the same reason the ESRI is pulling reports from their website.

KyussBishop

^^ I don't follow; what bias am I missing?

thebman

KyussBishop wrote: »

^^ I don't follow; what bias am I missing?

Well if they get advertising money from their property sections they aren't going to investigate corruption in that area are they?

Most Irish newspapers would love a new property bubble.

MadsL

Nemo iudex in causa sua. This Latin phrase, which translates as "no man should be a judge in his own cause", is a fundamental principle of natural justice. Except in Ireland.

Housing and Planning Minister Jan O'Sullivan published the long-awaited Planning Review Report last week. The Labour Party has successfully positioned itself as the ethical watchdog of Fine Gael, or has it?

Strangely enough, here's a good article in the Indo.

http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/elaine-byrne-a-system-which-looks-after-itself-3140343.html

KyussBishop

thebman wrote: »

Well if they get advertising money from their property sections they aren't going to investigate corruption in that area are they?

Most Irish newspapers would love a new property bubble.

Ah, missed this post. Yes I don't hold any faith in any Irish or corporate journalistic outlets to investigate any of this, I advocate a more independent group of investigative journalists working on a non-profit basis, and getting their final reports published widely by multiple news sources (not limited to Ireland).

Something like this, some kind of free-from-influence journalistic outlet, is sorely needed.

Drumpot

My house was built in a field that was knicknamed "frog marsh" by the locals (only found that out recently).

Its flooded 4 out of the 6 years I have lived here.

I can goto the planning authority and get all sort of information/reading on why my estate was zoned for land . . You know what, I probabley wouldnt understand all the Bullsh*t jargon in it and even if I did, what do I do ? take it to the local garda and say, "I call bullsh*t?"

My estate shouldnt of been built (my local FG representitive said this to me and said "whoever zoned that land should be shot") . I dont believe they would say this publically, especially if its their parties policy to not concern itself with why certain areas were zoned for building . .

KyussBishop

Could you try to get a newspaper, news outlet or current affairs program to report on that?
That situation sounds like a perfect candidate for a journalist to take a look into and write about, or a program to do a story on.

Hell it'd be something even for a solicitor to start a case on, so would be worth seeing if you could get your local community looking into legal action against both the local authority (for the planning approval) and the property developers.

MadsL

KyussBishop wrote: »

Could you try to get a newspaper, news outlet or current affairs program to report on that?
That situation sounds like a perfect candidate for a journalist to take a look into and write about, or a program to do a story on.

Hell it'd be something even for a solicitor to start a case on, so would be worth seeing if you could get your local community looking into legal action against both the local authority (for the planning approval) and the property developers.

Good luck finding an actual journalist in Ireland. Most seem content to recycle press releases.

“Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.” George Orwell