Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I want to finish on an important issue relating to judgment in a senior role in a semi-State company. Mr. O'Connor's position was to more or less ignore the High Court ruling but the case was back before the court in 2009 and it was overturned a second time. It stated:

In upholding the challenge by Usk and District Resident Association to the 2008 permission, Mr. Justice McMenamin was strongly critical of the board's failure to adhere to those recommendations, describing as unfathomable the reasoning for its decision. It was remarkable that the board, a statutory body entrusted with decision-making of national importance, when taking upon itself to ignore the spirit if not the letter of a High Court order appeared not to have taken special care to ensure what it did was fair.

I challenged Mr. O'Connor about this at an Oireachtas committee hearing and he stated it was a wrong assumption by the court at that time. That is a serious charge for any individual to make about a High Court ruling. This is important information that the committee needs to consider.

Subsequently, the Courts Service took Mr. O'Connor up on his statement and said:

It was suggested that the trial judge made a wrong assumption as to whether the board had received legal advice prior to making the decision found to be unlawful because it was objectively biased. The remarks attributed to the chairman might be interpreted as meaning the judgement had been based on incorrect facts or inferences from the evidence. This is not so. In the case referred to, the judge concluded that a decision of An Bord Pleanála to grant planning permission for an engineered landfill would give rise to a reasonable apprehension that there had not been an impartial decision-making process. The board's decision was irrational and in excess of its jurisdiction and should be quashed.

Mr. O'Connor stated to a committee that a High Court ruling had made a wrong assumption and he is back before us in a leadership role related to critical infrastructure. I question his judgment in the past and I question it now. What are his comments on that?