Category Archives: Transparency

TWILIGHT ZONEing

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In 2017 executive planners in An Bord Pleanála, led by Paul Hyde, denied Skerries a hotel, pool, playing pitches and housing. It was a plan we had worked on since 2009. It had been voted in by the elected councillors in 2011. A full Masterplan was agreed by Fingal County Council in 2013 and full planning permission granted by the council in 2017. We had everything waiting to go, an eco bulder (Baufritz) for the housing, a Uk hotel operator interested and an agreement with Aura to operate the swimming pool.

As you know we were shocked to put it mildly. Although I knew what had happened, I  looked for clues in the Board under Freedom of Information, FOI.  I could see how the assistant Director of Planning, AnnMarie O’Connor, (now deputy planning regulator to Niall Cussen) was mentoring a young inspector who, before that in the Board, had worked on a house extension in Lusk. Holmpatrick Cove was quite the jump with its detailed Environmental Impact Assessment covering things such as archaeology, flora and fauna including bird surveys, visual impact, transportation and traffic, archaeological and cultural heritage, noise vibration, you name it. It was covered. All scientifically based studies that had been signed off by the various departments of Fingal Co Co.  Paul Hyde, Philip Jones and Terry Prendergast overturned a strong grant of planning permission from the council, in the Board. In fact, Paul Hyde added a few items for good measure before he presented it to the board.  And that was that. Holmpatrick Cove was no more.

Executive planners in Fingal took up the baton since then. When the local councillors asked for a variation, the answer was no. “We’ll look at it again in the context of the next development plan” …five bloody years later. In meeting after meeting trying to progress the planning, we were met by a brick wall no matter what way we tried to move on. We were stuck between two groups of planning executives. The Board who had thrown out what was in effect Fingal’s Masterplan and Fingal Co Co ececutive who were still saying it was in their development plan, whilst ignoring the role they had played in it all by removing the statutory objectives in 2017.

Here we are “five bloody years later” and executive planners are doing what they do. The land where the hotel was to be is being zoned High Amenity. They are ruling out hotels with that zoning. So we went for a guesthouse with glamping and who knows maybe long into the future, sense might prevail……But now they want to remove the glamping. (It was voted into the Draft Plan by the councillors in March of this year). To quote the executive report; “the permanent element of the facility would render it nugatory.” I had to look up the word nugatory. It means worthless, useless or futile. That’s the official line of the executive planners. It’s in AnnMarie Farrelly, the CEO’s recommendation. She should talk to her colleagues in the Economic Development department and Tourism branch. Only as recently as 2019 an application went into Fáilte Ireland by Fingal County Council. The glamping facility on our lands was front and centre to meet the criteria for the funding. Clearly the  Economic Development arm of the council doesn’t share the view that the glamping  is ‘nugatory’. And nor do we. A well run, sensitively designed glamping facility would go some way to fill a gaping hole, that is the lack of overnight accommodation in our town. They got the funding, by the way.

And that’s only the glamping part. Wait until you hear what they are saying about the housing. They are pretending that the land where the housing is was High Amenity land (HA). So everything they say is based on housing on HA lands, which doesn’t apply here. They are doing what they do best and talking about this and that objective as if the land was High Amenity. Fact is it was residential over three development plans since 2001. Before that, it was agricultural,  like most other houses built in Skerries over the last 50 years. So, when they say “it is not considered appropriate to zone HA zoned lands to RS/RA….and the RS zoned lands at Holmpatrick shall revert to HA zoned lands” they are misleading the councillors. In fact, using cockney rhyming slang, they are telling porky pies.

Maybe they’re going back as far as our archaeological reports that were submitted as part of the evidence based Environmental Impact Assesment. But actually, here’s an interesting fact; the archaeologist told me that our site was an industrial Bronze Age site! We have the remnants of a ‘Fulacht Fia’ (pit where water is heated for dyeing cloth and cooking)  where the glamping is planned. We are hoping to make the archaeological heritage very much an attraction of our glamping, by showcasing the archaeology.

But the real reason I bring up the archaeology is the fact that the executive’s recommendations act like they don’t remember all of the scientific based studies that have already been carried out on the land over the Masterplanning and planning applications that I already referred to above. These science-based studies showed how the development would not have any adverse ecological or environmental impact locally or on any Natura 200 sites. So , when the executive says things in their recommendations like “proximity to an international bird sanctuary”, ‘potential for environmental/archaeological assessment”, “highly sensitive landscape” “coastline vulnerable to coastal erosion”,  they should go talk to their own heritage officer who fully ratified all of these reports. They also are also pretending it’s “remote’ and not serviced; “absence of adequate services and infrastructure to serve the area”. They should talk to their roads and water/gas departments. It’s intentionally misleading. It’s propaganda but in fairness they did it before in 2010/11 and it gives the few objectors great ammunition.  

And speaking of the few objectors. What to say?! I won’t go there. The Coastal Way will come and open up that part of Skerries to everyone,  so there’s only so long they can enjoy our land for themselves. Personally, the Coastal walk can’t come soon enough. It has been an objective since the 1970s! We bought the missing link to connect  Holmpatrick Cove to the Council-owned Nun’s field. We lost that land and the house attached to it (our home) in the receivership. But that’s in my other blogs. I know from my conversations with the new owner, that he will not be standing in the way of the Coastal Way. It will be a great amenity for the area and ironically, for those living on the Rush Road.

I think it’s important to mention the fact that some objectors are putting local councillors under a lot of pressure and in one case I would say it is close to harassment at this point. I refer particularly to the two councillors who are proposing and seconding the motions on Holmpatrick , Cllr Karen Power and Cllr Seána O’Rodaigh. Their motions are in support of the glamping and against the council’s attempt to de-zone the residential zoning. They along with Cllr Tom O’Leary, Cllr Grainne Maguire and Cllr Tony Murphy (all our local councillors) will be fighting our corner tomorrow, as they have done before That’s Tuesday from 3pm. Our motions should be about an hour in. I think it’s around motion 410. I would encourage anyone to log onto the Fingal Co Co Website where you can watch the debate live. You can do this by looking up the Webcasts and clicking into the live meeting. This is the sixth time we have gone through this and it doesn’t get any easier. The executive seem to go to extreme lengths to stop us. We should have gone for a municipal dump. It might have been easier!

Last quote from the executive report regarding the glamping “one submission supports Map-based objective 6 (the glamping) as set out in the Draft Plan while the vast majority of submissions are opposed to its inclusion…”. They are referring to my submission and maybe six possibly seven who wrote into the Draft Plan opposing. If  you don’t think the glamping is “nugatory” and you haven’t signed the petition set up by Cllr Power, I woud be grateful if you would sign it and remind the executive what vast majority actually means. As I write this, we are 932 signatures. Thank you to everyone who has signed so far and for the comments on social media and in the Uplift petition. We are very grateful, as always, for your support.

Finally, I see in the news today that Paul Hyde (see above!) is now facing criminal charges under the Planning and Development Act. The OPR came out with the first part of two, in their Inquiry into the Board the other day. The Ditch and The Examiner have written extensively about the culture in the board and about serious questions to be asked of the Chairman, the Director of Planning and several board members. Yet the OPR was silent on this. There’s a lot to be said on this but Paul Hyde is being touted as the Ray Burke “line in the sand”. We all know how that worked out.

The Change.org petition in support of a glamping facility at Holmpatrick can be found on the link below.

https://chng.it/7DtfyBhwkB

Talk of Tribunals

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“Transparency is a fundamental principle in combating corruption which is a disease that flourishes in the shade”.

That was Justice Mahon in the Mahon Tribunal final report published in 2012.  The Tribunal into “Certain Planning Matters and Payments” as it was called, began in 1997.  The final report came out 15 years later. I followed the tribunal religiously from the days when Justice Flood was chairman, all the way through to its conclusion. I remember listening to the RTE Radio enactments at night cycling on an exercise bike in the sunroom of our home in the Skerries Rock estate. I had two young babies at the time. Michael had sold his internet company and we had just bought our land. We were hoping to build a home on the Rush Road, not far from where I grew up.

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The Tribunal was compulsive listening. On one occasion and when James Gogarty was giving evidence, we went into Dublin Castle to see the proceedings in action. Mr Gogarty was a brave man. When he died in 2005 Justice Flood attended his funeral which I thought said a lot. Tom Gilmartiin’s brave testimony to the Tribunal stands out. He told the truth. He passed away in 2013 quietly and with dignity. It was reported in the Irish Times that there were no Dail Tributes “just prayers, a poem and a song”. I hoped, as most did at the time, that despite the huge amount of public money spent on the tribunal, that Ireland would be the better for it and that the end result would result in a more transparent and equitable planning system.

Unfortunately, corruption is still thriving in the shadows. If there is another tribunal I am offering our story as proof that the planning system is as opaque as it ever was. When he wrote his recommendations, Justice Mahon knew well that it is not possible to completely eliminate corruption. He spoke of emerging gaps in transparency and the need for constant review. He stressed that the example should come from the top.

“the corrupt and the corruptible will inevitably gravitate to the weakest link in the chain of anti-corruption measures”….“corruption at the top tends to repeat itself throughout the whole governance system”.

I have seen it first-hand, how corruption coming from the top creates a tribe of ‘enablers’. Within that tribe, there are three main types of enablers: the Complicit, the Willfully Blind and the Indifferent. (credit Margaret Heffernan in the Ivey Business Journal).

The Complicit are actively involved in corruption but in a bubble, cut-off from reality and with little accountability – some of them are just following orders, some are happy with the rewards and some are afraid of retribution if they were to speak out. When there is a group of people who are aware of what is going on, leaks start to emerge. Comments make their way back to us. To quote a few; “it wasn’t me. I didn’t do it!”, “I’m not the one that was the bad bastard”, “they’ll never get planning because my ..…  is very high up in planning and knows their every move”, “it wasn’t as simple as that”, “it was one of the ones that wasn’t going through”.

The Willfully Blind are aware but turning a blind eye in the belief that protecting the institution is more important than the truth. From experience the Willfully Blind tend to take one of two approaches in the hope that the issue gets buried: they either just ignore your correspondence completely or if presented with facts that cannot be refuted, they ignore them and proclaim that “the file is now closed”, “we have nothing further to add on the matter”.

The Indifferent are just that; indifferent. They just don’t want to know and would prefer to remain ignorant of the situation. Anything for an easy life.  Barack Obama said recently that the “biggest threat to democracy is indifference”.

This is what we have experienced in our dealings with the planning system, particularly since the latest refusal by An Bord Pleanala in 2017. There is a lot more that could be said about the system of course, but that’s for another time. I will say that the majority of people in the system are good people who carry out their duties in the public interest. It is unfortunate for us and for the town that personal interests came into play in our case.

Justice Mahon also spoke about conflicts of interest.  

“Conflicts of Interest are a root cause of corruption”.

 We can see clearly how a conflict has stopped our planning, not just for Holmpatrick Cove but since we bought the land 20 years ago. The land is and always was appropriate for development. The evidence-based studies confirm this as does the support from the community- all the sports clubs, the Skerries Community Association, the Chamber of Commerce, the Tidy Town’s Committee, were amongst many others who wrote in support of its development. There was a small handful of neighbouring objectors who provided the white noise required. Some of them close to the source of the conflict.  As I have said before, there are too many incidents, co-incidences and circumstantial connections pointing to one conclusion- that our planning was interfered with. We are far from alone in this assertion.

I wrote to Justice Mahon recently (a fan letter!) and he gave me some good advice. I am thinking about how best to use it. His and Justice Flood’s planning tribunal began the year my eldest daughter was born, in 1997. She’s 23 now. She has four younger siblings. We are living in her fourth home since then. When I was following the Tribunal hearings all those years ago never did I think that we would be impacted by planning corruption to the extent that we would lose our home and livelihood in the process. We will move on of course. On to our next home. If there is one thing our experience has taught us, it is resilience.

Last Christmas we showed a public representative our information. He is very sympathetic, and we believe will make a difference.  We showed him the timelines, the links between parties, the decisions taken. We told our story. We all joked about the fact that there was a tribunal in it. On seeing what we put in front of him his response was “if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, then it is a duck!”. Well, all I can say is – that duck is still quacking……!  

T(h)reading Water

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A few days ago we went for a drive. An escape. We are limited to Dublin of course with the lockdown so we decided to drive south along the coast.  It was a beautiful sunny day and when we hit Malahide Michael suggested that we go for a swim in the Forty Foot in Sandycove. It was unplanned so we stopped off at Dunnes stores in Cornelscourt and picked up some togs and towels. My grandfather Barney, used to swim at the Forty Foot every day in the Summer after he retired to Dalkey. That was back in the days when it was a male only swimming place. No togs needed in those times! Apart from a look at the Forty Foot on a cold Winter’s day, I had never swum there. I was very taken by the place. It was magical with the sun shining on the water and heads bobbing in the sea.  It was like an outdoor Lido. It was lunchtime and it was obvious that office workers, amongst others, were having a lunchtime swim. Everyone was cheerfully soaking up the last of the late summer sunshine. We had a lovely swim.

Skerries Frosties- Holmpatrick Cove Swim

Skerries is a swimming town, which is no surprise really given that it has water on three sides. I come from a swimming family. My father taught generations of Skerries children to swim. First in the sea some time around 1960. They used a long pole with a hoop at the end at the Springboards.  Later on in 1968 Skerries Swimming Club moved to Gormanston College swimming pool, which is about 15k away from Skerries. When we were very young we used to go there in Charlie Fanning’s minibus. That was before we got the old Renault 12. My father brought myself and my siblings down every Saturday morning for our swimming lessons.

Gormanston was a great tradition. My father taught the littlest, who would swim a width and have to get out of the pool to run around again. You worked your way up the widths as you got better.  From Mr Ryan to Mr McGloughlin to Mr Maloney, Mr Sexton and then you would hit Mr Carmichael. Now, Mr Carmichael was a man dedicated to teaching swimming, but his children skills were lacking to say the least! He was terrifying- God rest him. He used to shout at the kids and blow his whistle. My siblings and I were lucky because we had our father as a bit of a cushion. There was a great motivation to get through this width quickly as you would be moved up to the sanctuary of the next session, where you got to swim lengths.

When my eldest children were young we had the same routine. We went to Gormanston every Saturday morning to swimming. My father had moved on from teaching the young kids.  After 37 years and a couple of operations he figured that if he didn’t give it up when my youngest brother finished, he might have to see his grandchildren out. So he wisely quit while he was ahead. When we brought our children my niece Ciara (on the Branagan side) was shepherding the little ones through the first width. It went from Ciara to Conor, to Barry, to David to Peter. Same process but a new generation of children who, as a sign of the times, now called their teachers by their first names! 

Gormanston was great. Lovely Art Deco architecture. We all have great memories going there. The Galas. The echos and smell of chlorine as we ran through the entrance. The conker (chestnut) trees in the grounds. The day Mr Carmichael fell in the pool. (There was a rumour going around that he couldn’t actually swim!) The struggle to get there on time and the disappearing goggles that drove me insane. (I always thought a good title for a parenting book would be Gumshields and Goggles!).  But the roof fell in on the swimming pool and it was closed down about seven years ago. My youngest didn’t get beyond widths to lengths, which was such a pity; the difference between an able swimmer and a great swimmer.

Skerries Swimming Club also has a series of sea races during the Summer. They date back as far as the 1920s. They had petered out but were revived by Leonard McGloughlin and friends in 1941. They have wonderful old trophies and names such as The Island Swim, The Round the Head Swim, The South Strand Swim. We had many a trophy on our mantlepiece growing up, gathering spools of thread, keys and general junk.  We even borrowed the Rose Bowl trophy for our youngest’s Christening! The sea races are still going strong today. Mr Carmichael used to run the races with Leonard in the early days. (nowadays it’s Barry Sexton and David McGloughlin). To Mr Carmichael’s credit he gave up endless hours voluntarily to Skerries Swimming Club and ran a tight ship. Nobody dared question the handicap he gave them. And if you didn’t go around the last buoy at the end of the race there was hell to pay! I remember, way back when I was heavily pregnant with my first child, myself and my friend Carol (who was heavily pregnant with her last child!) decided to do the swim from The Captains to the back of the harbour. Poor Mr Carmichael didn’t know where to look at the sight of the two quite heavily pregnant women.  A bad jellyfish sting put a hold on my sea racing career (not when I was pregnant thankfully) but I reckon after twenty years it might be time to make a come -back.

Over the years the town has tried to lobby for a swimming pool.  There was the Ballast Pit proposal that lots of us contributed to, but it got pulled from Skerries to Balbriggan. (we got our money back). But unfortunately a pool didn’t even get built in Balbriggan. And there was the pool we were going to build at Holmpatrick Cove. It would have been similar in size to the pool in Gormanston which had served us all well over the years before it was closed down. One of the few objectors said the pool wasn’t big enough, that it should be an Olympic sized pool. I love your thinking mate- but get real! He also said we didn’t need a hotel in Skerries or a “dead-end walkway”. I think that was more to do with the airstrip and hangar he uses which was built on the coast without planning permission. An airstrip that cuts across the coastal walkway. Anyway, I’m sure he is happy now as he gets to fly his little airplane totally uninterrupted. These days he has taken to giving a little victory flight over the bungalow we live in. I must let him know when we leave so he can return to his old route over Shenick Island, (the island with the Special Protection Area (SPA)- the European Directive to not disturb the birds!).

Speaking of swimming and Skerries, every Summer (except for this one of course due to Covid) we have Water Safety Week. It is a national initiative and like Skerries Swimming Club, it is all done on a voluntary basis. Watersafety week in Skerries has the biggest turnout nationally and there are waiting lists to get in. In 2019 I think about 400 kids took part. (I’m open to correction as it was probably even more than that). If you look at the South Strand on Watersafety week (or sometimes the North strand depending on which way the wind is blowing) there is a tented village set up for the week as the various classes go on.  Parents often down tools to spend a week on the beach and the picnics are legendary. I never quite got my act together on the baking front, but I was lucky that my friend Debbie is a great baker and she took pity on my kids over the years. The pay-off was the barbeque we had at the end of the week in our front garden. That was always a good night!

Watersafety week makes for hardy kids. They get put through the mill come rain or shine, staying in the water for up to half an hour. For the more senior swimmers at the Springboards, that can be twice a day as well as the Lifesaving theory classes on the grass. The supermarkets run out of hot chocolate that week! All the kids come away with great life skills and a lot of respect for the sea. This knowledge has helped two of my children and my niece and nephew, out of sticky situations in the past.

From hardy kids to hardy adults. We have a cold-water swimming group in Skerries called the Frosties. As you can probably guess, they swim all year round. Only the odd hurricane would deter them from their daily swim. I couldn’t contemplate doing that and you will never see me in the water for the annual Christmas swim. I’ll leave that to Michael and the kids who, along with the Branagan family, go in for their swim outside the old family home on the South Strand, before the customary Christmas drinks.

When Holmpatrick Cove was refused by An Bord Pleanala two walks to the site took place as a show of support for the development. The planning board had said that Holmpatrick Cove was rural and distant from the town. To show what a load of rubbish that was the Frosties decided to swim from the Springboards to Holmpatrick. Only in Skerries….God, I love this town!

When we came home from our trip to the Forty Foot the tide was in that evening and we felt we should round the day off with a swim in the Springboards. It was probably motivated by loyalty to Skerries, having “crossed over to the south side” earlier that day. So, with the sun lower in the sky and still glistening across the water, we had another swim. A great way to finish off a Summer season of sea swimming- two swims in the one day. The problem is that the sun is still shining- not a problem of course- but it’s making me feel guilty. Maybe there’s a few more dips in it before the Winter closes in….

 

Show Ponies and Circling the Wagons

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The RDS (Royal Dublin Society) in Ballsbridge plays host to the big shows and events in the country. Trade fairs, the Young Scientist Competition, the Spring Show, the Horse Show, music concerts and much more. It is of course the home of Leinster Rugby too.  I have gone to a few of the Leinster matches but I am happy to leave the tickets to the real Leinster fans in the house. A ticket would be wasted on me as I am a confessed fair-weather supporter, especially if Leinster are playing abroad. Now then I’m interested.

Jessica Springsteen Dublin Horse Show 2016 – Image Erin Gillmore/Noelle Floyd

I have quite a few memories of trips to the RDS. When I was very young I went to the Spring Show with my friend Millie and her Mum. Her Mum allowed us to go around a bit on our own and we were feeling very grown up until we innocently wandered out the main entrance. It was only after we started to cry that they let us back in again! I also have the memories of sitting final college exams in the RDS, another lifetime ago (with Millie again!). And of course there’s the annual Féis Ceoil which I have been to on occasion. It’s quite a serious event. It is a national classical music competition. I will never forget the time I went to wake up my younger daughter to bring her to the Féis. When I pulled back the bed covers to coax her out of bed I let out a scream when I saw a bright orange vision in the bed. Oh my God! Of all days, the Féis Ceoil was not the day to be bright orange. She had decided to apply a liberal amount of fake tan the night before. It was St Patrick’s day as it happens. All she needed was the green and white and she had full Irish flag – green, white and orange! We found a dress with long sleeves in her big sister’s wardrobe and a pair of tights, so we managed to cover up most of it. Even Cif Cream didn’t budge it so I have a great memory of watching her play her violin and all I could see were two bright orange hands. The things you remember!

I particularly remember another time we were in the RDS in the Summer of 2016. Myself and Michael were invited to the Horse Show by our friends as their guests. We had a lovely lunch whiling away the afternoon watching the show jumping. I remember the silliest details such as the fact that Bruce Springsteen’s daughter was one of the jockeys, but beyond that I wasn’t very clued-in to the horses.

But speaking of show ponies one thing I do remember about that afternoon is that a certain individual made a point of approaching us at the table. We knew him well. He had advised us in the past and there never had been any animosity. On this occasion he was advising us again, but this time unsolicited. You see, it had been about five months since we had lodged planning for our development and we were still waiting for news from the local council. He was very familiar with Holmpatrick Cove.  Of course he was, he’d only worked with us on the original submission to the Development Plan. He was our expert advisor at the time. He was hell bent on telling us that he’d been approached by one of the neighbours to put in an objection and he of course didn’t do it. He agreed with Michael who said he couldn’t have anyway because he would have been conflicted. In all it was an odd exchange.

Weird thing was, fast forward six months to February and it was a different story.  We had got the planning from the council and he was now working for ‘the neighbour’. (One of the ones that had lost the court case, had to pay costs, remember “wholly incredible” and all that). He put in an appeal to An Bord Pleanála. So, what had happened in the meantime that made him change his mind? Must have been worthwhile. I noticed he was appointed to a new role giving advice on a national level and that he was speaking on platforms with the big fish/big dogs or whatever you want to call them. He was even more important than he was back at the Horse Show. We were utterly shocked by the about-turn. Here he was (well there was an attempt at a Chinese wall) attacking his own planning advice. Quite the betrayal. We were appalled by the breach of trust.

He is a member of a club, not the Pony Club but an Institute that has rules and a very serious Professional Code of Conduct. From its Golden Years, around the turn of this century, to today, it is a very professional body. It’s motto is “One for all and all for one” no, only joking. It’s something like proud of … not sure…can’t quite remember. It’s obviously a very nice club to be a member of because they have your back, especially if you are very important.

I reported the conflict to the club.  It was very simple. How can you advise us and then attack your own advice a few years later? You can’t of course. It’s in their Code.  He wasn’t happy about the complaint. He was agitated. He turned to someone who he thought might have been able to persuade us to withdraw the complaint.  He told that contact that he wasn’t the one “that was the bad bastard”. I wonder who was…The contact warned us you see. Be very careful, “the system always protects itself”. No truer word. It does. He had told the club he didn’t advise us on our development but then I sent them the old submission. His own handwriting was all over it. An inconvenient truth. Anyway, they circled the wagons. Nothing to see here. Move along and don’t be bothering us. There must have been another code that I missed. A code of silence…for the life of me I still can’t find the section called Omertá Code on their Website. 

Of course, the RDS is a lot quieter these days with the pandemic still going strong. The Féis was cancelled this year. I don’t think my daughter was too upset, to put it mildly!  However, I am happy to report that Leinster were back in form last Saturday. They beat Munster but unfortunately had to play to an empty stadium. If you looked very closely at the TV screen, the real fans from this household were flying the flag, as they are known to do. A welcome bit of normality returned to this uneven world.

Saving the Community from Itself

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Saved by the Board- View from the White Wall
Imagine a planning appeals board refusing a planning because of the noise from children playing. Honestly, it’s way up there with Monty Python’s Ministry for Silly Walks. The noise from children exercising on land (zoned for recreational uses) would be “injurious to the neighbouring amenity” which, by the way, is well over 100 meters away. God love those families living in the houses overlooking the rugby and Gaelic pitches in Skerries I say.

This was An Bord Pleanala. They had run out of noise you see. All the other noises had been taken by the noise studies.

The appeals board knows best. They’re the experts. They know all about this planning stuff. Didn’t they put one of their most experienced inspectors in charge??! Hmm…let’s see….No! All of the local clubs and societies supported Holmpatrick Cove. They said it was ideal. A great plan for Skerries. But what would they know? They only have to live with it. Phew. Close one!

This is the same appeals board that said that that Holmpatrick Cove wasn’t the right place for a hotel. No, it wouldn’t do to have a hotel on the coast overlooking the islands at the edge of town. I mean it’s not as if Skerries, that tourist town, needed one. There’s one in Balbriggan isn’t there? And Malahide and plenty around the airport. Oh yes and there was that letter from Failte Ireland saying it in fact was the right place for a hotel. But what would they know? They’re only the tourist board. Or maybe that letter got lost somewhere….there was a lot of trouble with the filing system over those seven months. Files were going missing.

Another big problem, that the planning appeals board sorted out, was that if the development was built, you just might be able to see it. That would not do at all. So, if you are standing at the outer point of Red Island and you look south you would see it in the distance below the other houses up on the Rush road. You think that’s bad. Wait till you get to the White Wall at the rugby club (bear with me it’s a bit of a walk along the South Strand path where you wouldn’t be able to see it). Or you can drive (although they don’t like cars) and pull in to look at the islands. Now listen carefully, this is important; when you get there do not look out to sea at the view. I repeat do not look at the view. Turn around and face south and look along the coast and you would, heaven forbid, see bits of Holmpatrick Cove sticking out. (If it was built that is).

We were spared that “visual intrusion” by our public body. It’s all highly sensitive you see, being on the sea side of the road. These views are protected. That’s why they have these rules; so you can see the view. Only problem is that there are houses in the way on the Rush road. Lots of them and a hill. Imagine if you could have driven in and had a coffee in the hotel and actually seen the view. But rules are rules. Public bodies like rules. When they suit that is.

They like Objectives and Guidelines too. Throw in a few objectives for good measure. Your average punter won’t look them up. Like the one about being “set below the ridgeline”. Did you not read the application? Or about keeping the hedges. I could go on….The Guidelines are great though. Now that’s serious stuff. Quite scary really. But hang on. Why put in Guidelines that don’t match what your saying?  Surely you mean the 2007 ones not the 2009 ones? The ones that are actually about “sequential zoning”. The ones for the councillors who vote on zoning. Which they did. Four times. Maybe it was a mistake? Honestly, you’d swear it was a democracy or something.

If you had an hour or so to spare and as an average punter (a reasonable man/woman) you could get a copy of the Development Plan and have a gander. It could be a bit confusing though to the ‘reasonable man’. There’s a Masterplan in it called the Holmpatrick Cove Masterplan. It’s on the map too. Hatched out in black and yellow. There was supposed to be a hotel and pool and houses and a park and a walkway and oh yes, don’t forget the “training spaces” for those noisy kids. But no! The planning appeals board knew better than those meddling councillors. They knew better than the planners that wrote their Development Plan. They knew better than the community. They found a loophole. A technicality…….Gotcha!

Propaganda

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Every five years the local council votes on a new plan for their area. It is called the County Development Plan.  There is approximately a two year lead up to this process which is known as the Draft Development Plan. At the end of the two year period the local councillors get to vote in the plan that will shape their area over the next 5 years. The public participate in this process by making proposals to their local council and commenting on submissions made by third parties. The executive planners in the council are the administrators of this democratic process.

Skerries Harbour

In 2010 we made our submission to the Draft Development Plan process for Holmpatrick Cove. In truth we had made a submission in 2009 but it was returned because it was sent in at the wrong stage of the Development Plan process. (It was site-specific and at that stage they were dealing with strategic plans). The 2009 initial proposal was ambitious. A bit too ambitious as we were talking about Heritage Centres and Bird-Watching platforms and I think even an Aquarium!).  We had been to Lahinch, you see, earlier that year. That’s where the idea for Holmpatrick Cove evolved. They had it all there: hotel, swimming pool, aquarium, Heritage Centre down the road. So, we thought well, why not use our site in Skerries? We knew we had a great site. Strange decisions had been made in the Planning Board around our entrance. We knew they were based on vexatious claims so we could deal with that in the future.

The council had supported our plans for Holmpatrick Cove. By this I mean the executive planners who we went to in the first instance. They were going to propose it themselves in their January 2010 Manager’s Report. But that never happened; there was the famous unexplained U-turn. The local councillors did support our plans so, encouraged by them, we put our submission into the Draft Development Plan in May, 2010. At this point the plan was for a hotel, swimming pool, 24 contemporary houses on the residential lands, a park, training spaces and a coastal walkway- Holmpatrick Cove.

The first commentary on our proposal (Manager’s Report) that came out of the council was in September 2010. Another “Screening Report” followed which went on public display.  The executive had changed their tune, to put it mildly.  Holmpatrick Cove was now “highly undesirable” It was rural, distant, it had no public transport, highly sensitive, highly visible, it would damage the birds on island, it would damage air quality and climate. The report implied that the developers couldn’t be trusted, the entrance was sub-standard, there were plenty of hotels in the area, there was already public paths on the land. If what was said was true, Holmpatrick Cove would have been scandalous. But it wasn’t true. Our proposal was unrecognizable. Only possibly a municipal dump could have elicited such strong objection from the executive planners. The report was aimed at the 24 councillors who were to vote on the proposal in March 2011.

In January of 2011 we had our opportunity to respond to these reports. It was a stage in the Draft Plan that also allowed the public to make their views known. We made our submission dealing with the ‘mis-information’ in the Manager’s and Screening Reports. We included our Court Judgment and Order regarding the entrance and past refusals.  All of the submissions made during that stage were accessible on the Council’s public web-site. Except ours. Our submission was redacted/obliterated. They mustn’t have liked it.

The council executives got to reply to the January submissions in their February Manager’s Report.  “There were a large number of submissions received both in support and opposing Amendments 5.11 and 5.12 (collectively addressed as Holmpatrick).” That’s what they said, the Executive in Fingal Co Co. They were referring to Holmpatrick Cove. The truth is there were 19 against Holmpatrick Cove (including a round robin) and 125 in support (including all of the main sports clubs and societies in the town). The bias shown in the opening statement continued throughout the report.  Previous errors we had drawn their attention to were repeated. Holmpatrick Cove was stilll “highly undesirable” for the same five reasons. (they mustn’t have read the Court Judgment because they still mentioned the substandard access and previous refusals). They must have hidden our reply very well because it was completely ignored. It was now February 2011 and a month before the elected councillors would get to vote on the new County Development Plan

The final Development Plan meeting took place on March 23rd 2011. The councillors came armed with the February 2011 Manager’s Report (they were saving on printing). All 24 councillors were at the meeting and twenty of them spoke. Many of the councillors had bought into it the Manager’s Reports. Why wouldn’t they? There was a motion to take Holmpatrick Cove out of the County Development Plan. The councillor remarked at the meeting in March that she “was struck by the Manager’s lengthy and detailed reply. I haven’t seen such an emphatic reply to an objective”. So, she urged her fellow councillors to support her motion to remove Holmpatrick Cove from the Development Plan.

The executive (Gilbert Power and Rachael Kenny) did their best to defend their reports. Some points were obviously troublesome so there was a bit of clarification done only after the councillors’ debate had concluded. Apparently there were some facts in the Manager’s Reports that they couldn’t defend any more…there is a 33 bus that runs past the site….we haven’t I think anywhere in the report indicated numbers of submissions for or against….In relation to the access onto the road …there were a number of Board Pleanala refusals….we gave the factual panning history…the proposer has won a high court case…and that’s quite correct…and it should be said on the record. There seems to be a suggestion that the proposer has reneged on these lands, in ceding these lands….we were just simply answering the obvious question -were the lands in our control? No.…..In relation to hotels …there is a permission for a hotel at Milverton……you have existing hotels in the area, the Bracken Court Hotel…there are hotels in the area. We did make mention that there were local paths across the site….our information is probably incorrect….In relation to the reduction of Open Space lands where we did say 50%……that was a rough estimation on our part…….You can’t say that it’s visible from all areas of Skerries but it is visible. The senior planners tried their best to undermine Holmpatrick Cove- even at one stage Rachael Kenny displaying an incorrect site plan, the one that had been returned in 2009 with the Heritage Centre and Bird Watching building. This was done to illustrate to the councillors how much land would be taken up by the development. It was misleading to say the least. Perhaps an innocent mistake?

But local democracy won on that occasion. The local councillors defended the proposal and managed to persuade enough councillors to trust that they had their community’s best interest at heart.  The vote went in favour of Holmpatrick Cove. Holmpatrick Cove was on a Statutory footing in the 2011-17 Development Plan.

If anyone was to search the public record to read the official minutes of that meeting they would think the councillors who voted for Holmpatrick Cove must have been on some pretty strong substances to have voted the way they did. The public record consists of a Manager’s Report and a record of the way the vote went. But here’s the shocking bit.  When the minutes were published a month later the heading on the minutes said “The following report by the Manager, which had been considered, was CONSIDERED” (to you and I that means that the following report is the one that was debated).  But it wasn’t the report that had been ‘considered’. The report that was debated was substituted by a new, altered even more negative report. For example there were now 11 numbered reasons why Holmpatrick Cove was “highly undesirable.”  The public record is false.   

At the time we asked them why they altered the minutes and got a non-response. Earlier this year we contacted the council again. We provided detail and wanted the public record amended. The official response was “ The Planning History is on the Public Record”. No it’s not.

It is now 2020 and we are mid-way through the 2017-23 Development Plan. Holmpatrick Cove fell between two Development Plans. The council did grant planning permission for Holmpatrick Cove but it was refused by the planning board in 2017. That decision is a re-play of 2010/11.(For example they ignored the Court Judgment and preferred to mention the past refusals due to the substandard entrance etc. etc.). Also, the Statutory Objectives were taken away and exchanged by a ‘Non-Statutory’ Masterplan by the Fingal executive just before the refusal. Oh dear! That didn’t help. But fear not they did leave in one of the three Statutory Objectives- the one about ceding lands to Fingal. Anyway that’s another story and I’m sure there were at least 19 happy people (including the round robin!). Well maybe at least 21. (Must not forget those in the long grass).

The truth is the 2010/11 reports were biased, there were false and exaggerated statements made to further an agenda.  One-sided information was disseminated in a deliberate manner to influence public opinion.  Facts were manipulated and half-truths were presented as fact. The flow of information was controlled and information was withheld from the public. Loaded language was used to produce an emotional rather than a rational response. This is what the senior executives in the council presided over in 2011. Oh! and by the way, I have just outlined the definition of Propaganda.

Two nights ago we went to the Lighthouse Cinema to see The Sound of Music. Our eldest son had bought us all tickets. (He studies film and this was special because it was a 4k restoration of the original film). What a movie! Our youngest had never seen it before which I found hard to believe. Our eldest joked afterwards about the parallels in the end scene when the Von Trapp family are walking over the mountains into Switzerland, leaving everything behind them. They all agreed that they were looking forward to the day that we do the same with the field!

Credit: The Sound of Music- Von Trapp family flee to Switzerland