Developers helped by freeze of land charges

A former principal officer in Dublin County Council's planning department, Mr Albert Smith, agreed to a temporary freezing of development service charges on Murphy group lands in Swords, Co Dublin, resulting in substantial savings to the developers. The commitment came in a letter sent on May 21st, 1988, from Mr Smith to the Murphy group company Grafton Construction, new evidence at the Flood Tribunal revealed yesterday.

Cross-examining Mr James Gogarty, solicitor Mr Anthony Harris, for Mr George Redmond, revealed that Mr Smith and a planning official, Ms Sinead Collins, had both made statements about the arrangement.

The arrangement, approved by Mr Smith on behalf of the county council, was for acceptance of a payment of development service charges amounting to £122,000, which were levied when planning permission was granted on the lands in 1983.

By May 1998, with the planning permission about to expire, the county council had the potential to increase the service charges in connection with any new application for planning permission. The former assistant city and county manager, Mr Redmond, has acknowledged that he provided advice to the Murphy group to pay the original charges before the planning permission expired. The result was that the lands could be developed while paying planning charges which were less than half those which prevailed at the end of the 1980s.

The agreement was valid for two years. The Murphy group sold the lands to Princess Homes immediately afterwards.

According to the statement given by Ms Collins, now a planning official with Fingal County Council, if the arrangement had not been made a figure of £243,000 would have been more likely to have been levied.

However, Mr Gogarty accepted there was nothing whatsoever untoward in Mr Smith's conduct and described him as a "decent man".

In his statement to the tribunal, Mr Smith said he had "no recollection" of receiving a letter from the Murphy group company which owned the lands, Grafton Construction Ltd. Mr Smith also said he had no recollection of dealing with the file or writing to Mr Gogarty on May 21st, 1998, confirming the arrangement. However, Mr Smith acknowledged that "the letter in question bears my signature and although I have no recollection of the matter and although I never had any dealings with Mr Gogarty, nor did I ever meet or speak with him to the best of my knowledge, I believe that I have no reason to doubt that I dealt with this correspondence and I did so in a bona fide manner."

Mr Smith's statement continued that in the early 1980s or 1990s, "there was unease in the planning department in relation to the legality of the basis on which contributions were calculated and I, for one, would take any reasonable and legitimate step open to me to avoid a controversy in relation to such contributions and, in particular, to avoid any legal challenge to the method or basis on which contributions were calculated."