SOME LAWYERS participating in An Bord Pleanála oral hearings have been accused by its chairman, John O'Connor, of "engaging in courtroom histrionics which may be good for the odd headline but have no place in a planning hearing".
He said yesterday that such conduct "tends to prolong hearings unduly, distract from the real purpose of the hearing and can also hinder the inspector in getting to the root of the planning and environmental issues involved".
Asked when the appeals board would make its decision on the controversial high-rise plans for the Jurys/Berkeley Court sites in Ballsbridge, Mr O'Connor said this would be made on the same day as its decision on the adjoining veterinary college site.
He said the inspectors who had presided at oral hearings on the two schemes, one of which went on for more than three weeks, were still writing up their reports and it was "unlikely" that the cases would be decided before Christmas.
Mr O'Connor conceded that last year's record intake of 6,700 appeals left a "significant backlog" at the end of 2007 and resulted in a "deterioration in the timeliness of board decisions"; at the end of last month, the board still had 2,780 cases on hand.
This year, only a quarter of appeals would be disposed of within the statutory time period of 18 weeks. However, with the intake of appeals falling as a result of the economic downturn, the board expects the number of cases on hand to drop to 2,700 by year end.
Categories of development requiring considerable resources from the board during 2008 include big urban mixed-use schemes, waste management facilities and strategic infrastructure schemes that qualify for being "fast-tracked" directly to the board.
To the end of October, the board has received 98 requests from promoters of strategic infrastructure projects for "pre-application consultations" and held a total of 150 meetings. In 68 of these cases, the consultations have been concluded.
In 23 of these cases, involving a range of projects from electricity, gas, waste, airport, harbours, wind farms and railways, the board determined that they were strategic infrastructure cases, while 35 were not so regarded and 10 were withdrawn.
Referring to waste management proposals, Mr O'Connor said project sponsors "need to pay more attention to two aspects in particular - namely, the location of the project and the disposal of residues, both liquid and solid".
He added: "It is not enough to choose a location just because it hosts an existing waste facility or because of land ownership considerations. Neither is it acceptable to leave the disposal of residues to be dealt with later."
