Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 13 May 2021

Public Accounts Committee

2019 Financial Statements of An Bord Pleanála

9:30 am

Mr. Dave Walsh:

It is very difficult to project the costs associated with cases. Looking at the number of judicial reviews that were lodged in 2020, which was 83, to date this year we are somewhere in the order of possibly 25 or 27 new judicial reviews but many of them have not reached the courts yet as cases. The case level looks like it could be similar to 2020 but in terms of trying to extrapolate the costs, half of the costs generally in any year are costs incurred by our own legal teams and by the barristers that support us. If cases do go to court at that level, we would probably see a similar level, but it depends on the timing of cases, because when the cases are heard is when most of the costs tend to be incurred.