An Bord Pleanála has denied it was subjected to "any external pressure" over the Corrib gas project.
Its chairman, John O'Connor, was responding to this week's report on the project, which was published by the Centre for Public Inquiry, chaired by Mr Justice Feargus Flood.
The report said that within a week of senior executives of the Corrib consortium - Shell, Statoil and Marathon - meeting the Taoiseach in September 2003, they were given "unusual access" to the planning appeals board to express their concern over delays.
Shell E&P Ireland also said last night that the suggestion in the centre's report that its planning application was "in some way fast-tracked" by An Bord Pleanála was "simply not credible".
The planning procedure took four years from initial application to final consent, the company said, and approval was granted when "the substantive issue" of "the integrity of peat repositories at the site" had been addressed to the board's satisfaction.
An Bord Pleanála had turned down planning permission for the Corrib gas terminal at Bellanaboy in April 2003, but approved a revised plan in October 2004.
Mr O'Connor has confirmed that the board did meet senior executives of Shell (formerly Enterprise Energy Ireland), Statoil and Marathon, as part of an Irish Offshore Operators' Association delegation on September 23rd, 2003. Minutes of this meeting and related correspondence were published on the board's website last night.
However, it was "entirely wrong" to make any connection with its timing on September 23rd and a meeting between the Taoiseach and Shell representatives on September 19th, 2003, Mr O'Connor said. This meeting had been requested by the offshore association on June 20th, 2003, and the board had set a September date in its reply of July 15th, 20003, he said.
Mr O'Connor said it was "also wrong" to infer that the board's meeting with the association "entailed special treatment for this particular application".
He said it was "well known" and on public record that the board had a system of according priority to major infrastructure projects and that the gas project would come within this category.
The board also held meetings with various stakeholder groups to discuss general matters of planning, but not individual cases, he said. The request for a meeting from the offshore association would have been treated the same as would a request from other representative groups.
