Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 14 July 2022

Public Accounts Committee

2020 Report of the Comptroller and Auditor General and Appropriation Accounts
An Bord Pleanála - Financial Statements 2020
Vote 34 - Housing, Local Government and Heritage

9:30 am

Mr. Dave Walsh:

The board takes lessons from every judicial review. We get legal advice on all the actions, and comments from the board. We integrate those into our learnings for the inspectorate's analysis and the board in terms of the decisions it can and cannot take. On average, because of the judicial reviews and the lessons we have built in, the inspectorate reports have probably increased in length by 50% to 70% purely to cover off many issues of which the courts have said there is insufficient analysis. To say we are not taking any actions arising from the judicial reviews is incorrect. In the last two weeks, the Supreme Court made rulings on two similar cases decided by different judges with different outcomes. Even the courts are struggling to identify the issues.