An ABP board member granted planning permission for a 493-unit scheme to a developer that hired her architecture firm to design another of its developments. She did not disclose her 33 percent holding in the firm, which she co-owns with her husband

18 comments

  1. Hopefully they punish her for her stupidity but if the planning is legitimately permission worthy, they don’t delay construction.

  2. How the fuck is a member of ABP also working as an architect. Wtf??? No one working the civil service, government or government agency should be allowed to have 2nd jobs. Their investments should be disclosed and put in a trust or dissolved before getting a job like this

  3. I hate these stories. All it seeks to do is undermine ABP. They’re the only ones stopping NIMBYism from becoming endemic in Irish society.

    Imagine if they were to go and everything was left up to the courts? No new apartment blocks, no Metrolink, no bus connects, no bike lanes, no pedestrianised streets, nowhere for Ukrainian evacuees to live.

    Say what you want about them but they’re gliding through red tape at the moment at a time when that’s exactly what’s needed. A take down by hurlers on the ditch shouldn’t stop them.

  4. Love how RTE and the IT go out of their way to avoid mentioning Village magazine and on the ditch even when two of the biggest scandals in recent times were uncovered by these publications.

    Absolutely totally and utterly a normal country.

  6. I’ve been saying this all along, politicians don’t take bribes in cash. They approve things from which their cousins company would greatly benefit as a contractor etc.

  7. Serious root and branch reform of ABP needed. Rotten to the core. Murky decision making behind approval of Strategic Housing Development, very little transparency. You’d think we’d have had reform given our history with planning corruption.

  11. A couple of points of relevance that the tweet/article miss out on.

    -Fagan stopped practicing in FKL in 2020 (iirc, could have been 2019). She doesn’t attend their office, doesn’t carry out work for them and doesn’t receive a salary afaik

    -Paddy McKillen/PressUp are pretty prolific in the construction industry for the last few years. Him and developers like him will generally contract a lot of different architecture firms for different jobs. Point being that there’s going to be a reasonable number of firms in Dublin that have been hired by Paddy McKillen. FKL aren’t one of very few people that will have worked for him.

    -I would be surprised if ABP weren’t aware of Fagans part ownership/past employments with FKL when she went through the hiring process. This is speculation but I’d be at a loss if ABP weren’t aware.

    -I highly doubt there was any explicit corruption here (brown envelops etc) considering the clear connection and how reputationally damaging it would be to all parties involved. Yes you can argue there’s a conflict of interest here, but FKL really have no stake in Paddy getting refused permission on a scheme they haven’t been involved with. I highly doubt it will cost them further work from Paddy should Fagan not vote positively on the scheme. I just doubt Paddy would elect to not hire FKL if they did a competent good job for him before, because their former employee and stakeholder voted against his scheme (in keeping with the decisions of other board members)

    -It should be noted that, as a board member, Fagan has been known to grant permission on schemes that the abp case inspector has reccomended be refused. This is not the first time she’s went against the consensus essentially.

    -Not really relevant, but the article mentions FKL designed the apartment building in Mount Merrion. Afaik they were hired after the building was given permission to manage the detailing/construction, and as such didn’t design the building, the original architect who obtained the permission did.

    Source: am involved in the construction industry in Dublin

  13. Michelle Fagan’s name is halfway down all of these articles about her, which I find a little absurd. Sure she’s named and shamed, but I wonder why the editors aren’t putting her name in the title, where it would be more widely visable. Name and shame on her.

  15. The top of the public service and business in this country is remarkably corrupt. It is a very small world where everyone knows everyone. Money never changes hands but a lot of favours do.

  17. So where’s this going? Is this being investigated? Clearly a breach of trust and abuse of power. There’s no one that could argue this was proper conduct.

  18. Can i just say, im all for turning a blind eye to almost any corruption right now that results in high density housing and lots of it being built. Somebody wants to fiddle the rules and it results in a 50 storey 2000 apartment building casting a shadow across half of blackrock, please do that. Anything to screw over nimbys

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