Sir, - I refer to a report (Irish Times, September 2nd) regarding a decision by Wicklow County Council to grant planning permission for 64 houses in Greystones/Delgany. There was quite an amount of local opposition to the granting of the application.
In the report, your journalist, Tim O'Brien, said that Mr Des O'Brien, Senior Executive Engineer (Planning) was not allowed to speak to the press and that I was unavailable for comment.
This article appeared to give the impression that officials of Wicklow County Council were unwilling to discuss openly with the media controversial planning decisions. This is not the case.
Mr Des O'Brien spoke off the record to your journalist and later on that afternoon (August 28th), I returned the journalist's phone call with a view to giving a statement. Thus to say that I was unavailable was not factually correct.
Wicklow County Council will always present the background to decisions made by it and will, in return, expect fair reporting. - Yours, etc.,
County Secretary, Wicklow County Council, Wicklow.