Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The planning tribunal, which lasted 15 years, detailed a web of corruption in planning in Dublin city in the late 1980s and early 1990s and culminated in a report by Mr. Justice Mahon which recommended a series of detailed proposals aimed at preventing a repeat of what had gone before. Among his recommendations was the establishment of an independent planning regulator. When the report was published in March 2012, the then Minister of State at the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Jan O'Sullivan, promised that the Government would establish a regulator but nothing has been done in the intervening years and the proposed scheme for the new planning Bill does not allow for the appointment of an independent regulator. Saying it is so, as the Government attempts to do in the amendment to our motion, does not make it so. We are not the only people who have recognised this deficit.

We would be naive to believe that the corruption uncovered in the course of the Mahon tribunal was unique to Dublin. None the less, we all hoped that corruption in planning would be a thing of the past. Unfortunately, because of the failure to implement Mahon, serious irregularities continue to arise. One of the most serious of these was brought to my attention by my colleague, Deputy Brian Stanley, who met a number of people from County Wicklow who informed him of several cases, including one in which the value of a property earmarked for development was vastly increased in value through rezoning and compulsory purchase orders to facilitate the development. The developers, Seán Dunne and Sean Mulryan, were to be the chief beneficiaries.

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