An Bord Pleanála requires extensive retrofit

Government moves to make emergency appointments to the board of An Bord Pleanála reflect acute strain on the planning authority, amid turmoil over its former deputy chairman Paul Hyde.

With only five of the usual nine ordinary board seats occupied and more than 2,000 cases on hand going into the autumn, the lack of decision-making personnel would be a problem even if An Bord Pleanála was not at the centre of controversy. Adding to pressure on the depleted board is the move to scrap two-person panels, ending exceptional measures in place for a decade by restoring a three-person minimum quorum. This is good practice and questions remain about why the two-person quorum endured for so long.

Slow as the current system is, it’s difficult to see how gridlock could be avoided without new appointments. No surprise then that an expanded board might well end up with more than 10 members, permissible under law because there is no cap on temporary appointments. That seems like an obvious move for Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien. But it will do little on its own to ease disquiet at the increasing number and rising cost of legal claims against decisions handed down by the authority and disruption when such cases are lost or conceded.

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An Bord Pleanála told the High Court yesterday that it does not intend to oppose a legal challenge to its permission for 115 apartments in Dundrum, Dublin 14. This followed on closely from the board conceding seven court challenges against housing, infrastructure, wind power and development projects it had previously approved.

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What is the board’s workload? A recent expert report for the Office of the Planning Regulator provides some insight, saying An Bord Pleanála disposed of some 2,800 cases annually in recent years and convened some 500 or more board meetings per year to make decisions. “This equates to over 11 planning cases being disposed of each standard working day (ie not factoring in annual leave, etc, for board members),” said the report.

No wonder Ministers are anxious about the backlog.