Former junior minister Eithne Fitzgerald has described planning decisions in Dublin County Council as ‘dysfunctional’ and developer driven.
Ms Fitzgerald, who was a Labour Party councillor, told the Mahon Tribunal that councillors were brought in from a nearby pub to get rezonings through.
She said that Fianna Fáil councillor, the late Pat Dunne, would stand in the chamber counting people as they came in and then ‘give a nod’ to the chair when there were enough to get development motions passed.
If there were not enough councillors there, she said the council would take ‘harmless business’.
Ms Fitzgerald said there were 160 acres of land derelict in Dublin city at the time but developers wanted to push out the city boundaries instead because there was more profit to be made in rezoning agricultural land.
Planning decisions were not made for the well being of people in Dublin but because someone wanted their land developed, she said.
The former junior minister added that areas zoned white for agriculture or open space were seen as virgin territory to be colonised.
She said this happened even though the official planners had said there was already enough zoning for the Dublin's industrial and residential need.
The problem was that planning motions could be passed with a simple majority by just a small number of councillors in attendance and people were called in from Conways pub for the votes, she claimed.
These meetings took place during the day several times a week when many other councillors could not get off work.
Ms Fitzgerald said she had not received any donations from backers of the Cherrywood development in south Dublin and voted against the rezoning.
