Three members of An Bord Pleanala are believed to have applied for the £90,000-a-year post of chairing the appeals board for the next seven years, following the retirement in May of Mr Paddy O'Duffy.
A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said last night that a "substantial number of high-quality applications" had been received and they would be passed to a specially constituted panel of assessors on Friday.
Mr O'Duffy, formerly assistant secretary in charge of the Department's roads division, has been chairman since March 1994, having previously served as deputy chairman for three years. He will be 65 in early May.
During his period as chairman the number of appeals dealt with annually by the board almost doubled, to 4,600 in 1999, mirroring the huge increase in construction activity fuelled by an unprecedented economic boom.
The board has been the subject of continual criticism over the length of time it takes to determine appeals. More staff have been hired and more board members appointed in an effort to clear the backlog and speed up the appeal process. There was strong speculation yesterday that the Construction Industry Federation would put forward a candidate for the chairmanship, reflecting its frustration over delays and its unease at the drift of An Bord Pleanala's philosophy.
That has certainly changed during the past six years. In the mid-1990s the board used to cite job creation as a reason for granting permission for major projects such as the Masonite fibreboard plant on the banks of the Shannon in Co Leitrim.
However, as Mr O'Duffy has made clear, the present era of prosperity meant that the board could "afford to be more discriminating about development": the interests of "Ireland Inc" are no longer so overwhelming.
In recent weeks, An Bord Pleanala has refused permission for the highly contentious State-sponsored visitor facility at Mullaghmore in the Burren area of Co Clare and for a private toxic waste incinerator outside Kilcock, Co Kildare. Its decision last September to reject plans for two glazed towers at George's Quay, Dublin, opposite the Custom House, laid down a marker in the debate about whether Dublin should opt for a high-rise future and, if so, under what circumstances.
At a press briefing in November on its 1998 annual report, Mr O'Duffy said it was "time to stop giving lip-service" to the concept of sustainable development, now enshrined as a relevant planning consideration by the 1999 Planning Bill.
The Bill, which is expected to be enacted later this year, gives a range of new powers to An Bord Pleanala, including responsibility for dealing with appeals against road and motorway schemes and compulsory purchase orders made by local authorities.
It also confers new powers on the board's chairman, specifying that it will be up to him or her to decide the membership of divisions of the board to deal with appeals and whether particular cases are so important that they must be decided by the full board.
The leading internal candidate for the post is thought to be Ms Ann Quinn, the deputy chairman and longest-serving member of the board. She was first appointed in 1984 after it was reconstituted in the wake of a series of political appointments by Mr Ray Burke.
The other board members interested in becoming chairman are believed to be Mr Lewis Clohessy, a former official of An Taisce who ran the Dublin 91 European City of Culture, and Mr Michael Wall, an architect and planner who joined the board in January 1999.
Mr Wall, who is in his mid-30s, is no longer the only architect on the board. Last week, Ms Angela Tunney, architect-planner and daughter of the former Fianna Fail TD, Mr Jim Tunney, was appointed on the nomination of the business and industry panel.
The most hotly tipped candidate to succeed Mr O'Duffy in the chair is Mr John O'Connor, assistant secretary in charge of the Department of the Environment's planning division and a board member of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority.
The final choice will be made by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, from a shortlist of three chosen by a panel consisting of the president of the High Court, the chairman of the General Council of County Councils, the secretary general of the Department of the Environment, the national chairman of An Taisce, the president of the Construction Industry Federation and the president of the ICTU.