THE MAYOR of Killarney, Patrick O’Donoghue, yesterday pleaded guilty in the Circuit Criminal Court in Tralee to seeking to influence a decision of Killarney Town Council over a motion to rezone his family lands surrounding the Gleneagle Hotel in Killarney in 2006.
It is believed to be the first prosecution of a local authority councillor for a breach of ethics legislation.
O’Donoghue, the managing director of the Gleneagle Hotel group, is a Fianna Fáil member of the town council and is also a director of both Fáilte Ireland and Tourism Ireland.
The charge of seeking to influence the decision of a local authority was brought under the ethics legislation (sections 177, 181 and 182) of the Local Government Act 2001.
At the outset of the brief appearance yesterday, Tom Rice, state prosecutor for the DPP, told Judge Carroll Moran he was asking to have O’Donoghue arraigned on one of two charges.
The charge as read by the court registrar was that: “Patrick O’Donoghue being a member of Killarney Town Council and being a person with actual knowledge of his beneficial interest in certain lands at Killarney on dates between January 1st, 2006, and March 6th, 2006, at Killarney sought to influence a decision of Killarney Town Council in respect of a matter regarding the performance by that authority of its functions under the Planning Act 2000, namely the rezoning of those lands.”
O’Donoghue, replied “guilty, judge”. Judge Carroll Moran adjourned the matter, by consent, to June 30th.
O’Donoghue had been sent forward for trial from the District Court in May 2008 on two charges including that he failed to withdraw from the town council meeting on the night of March 6th, 2006, when the motion was discussed and considered.
The charge of failing to withdraw from the meeting would not be proceeded with, Mr Rice indicated yesterday. “In due course a nolle prosequi will be entered,” Mr Rice said.
The motion before the March monthly meeting in 2006 was signed by five Killarney town councillors and passed by a majority of councillors.
It sought to rezone 20 acres of lands containing a pitch and putt course which had no zoning designation.
The lands, Gleneagle and Brehon Hotels and the INEC event centre are about a mile from the centre and used to be under the county council rather than the town council remit.
At the meeting O’Donoghue had declared his interest in the matter and abstained from the discussion of the motion. He did not vote on the matter.
The charges relate to personal discussions he had had with councillors in the period leading up to the the meeting.
Officials who vehemently opposed the town centre designation later blocked it. The land has since been rezoned for tourism purposes in accordance with planners’ original advice.
An investigation by the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) was commenced which led to an oral hearing. In May 2007 the ethics watchdog found that O’Donoghue had breached ethics legislation and the matter was referred to the DPP.
Sipo said it was satisfied on the balance of probabilities that Cllr O’Donoghue sought to influence the decision of Killarney Town Council by seeking the support of councillors in relation to the rezoning motion.
In July 2008, at the annual general meeting of Killarney Town Council, O’Donoghue was elected mayor of Killarney unopposed, and he received the backing of his Fianna Fáil party colleagues, Independents and the Fine Gael and Labour town councillors on the nine-member town council.