Mr. Jack O'Sullivan:

The points raised by Senator Warfield are very good. If we take a more general broad view of why these kinds of things happen, there are possibly two causes that may be within the purview of this committee and more within that of the Government. First, after the fall of the Celtic tiger, let us put it like that, many of our local authorities were almost emasculated and lots of staff were cut. I have a certain degree of sympathy with our local authorities - not 100% but I understand what they are trying to do and their planners and other staff are overstretched all the time.

A second difficulty they face is that there is a culture in Ireland, and I am not saying this is true of any particular county but I have seen this happen in my county of Westmeath, not in relation to this case, but others, where a general view is held among people who might be members of the public or landowners that they have a right to develop and planners are standing in their way. That is not a nice culture to have. It eventually leads to corruption of the planning laws and so on.

Finally, I know of a number of situations, including in Westmeath, where the county council has felt unable, for whatever reason, to act or move against a developer who has flagrantly transgressed the planning laws. I find that very unfortunate. I spoke to a chief planner in Westmeath County Council quite a long time ago about one particular development, which I will not name, unless the Chairman wants me to.