The High Court has refused an application by Dublin City Council and councillor Oisín Quinn to quash a Standards in Public Office Commission report concerning Quinn’s participation in city building-height motions.
In a judgment delivered on 29 January 2014, Mr Justice Hedigan held that Dublin City Council had no standing to maintain the judicial review. The Council argued that the Commission’s interpretation of the rules could force councillors to withdraw from planning decisions so often that local authorities would struggle to perform their functions. The judge said there was no evidence to support that claim. He noted that only two of 50 motions Quinn proposed in connection with the development plan had been challenged, and that five local authorities had adopted development plans since the Commission’s determination without evidence of the alleged wider effect.
Quinn had a one-sixth interest in an office block at 84–93 Lower Mount Street, Dublin 2; his siblings held the remaining five-sixths. He declared his own interest but considered it too remote to require him to withdraw from motions on permitted building heights across Dublin. The Commission disagreed, finding that the interest was not so remote or insignificant that disclosure was unnecessary. It found contraventions relating to motions held on 2 December 2009 and a composite motion, including failures to disclose and withdraw from voting.
The judgment said the Commission had found that Quinn acted in good faith and that the contraventions were inadvertent and minor. Quinn challenged the report on grounds including unfair procedure, legal error, irrationality and inadequate reasons. The judge said Quinn’s standing was in some doubt because he had joined to allow issues of public interest to be addressed, but proceeded to consider his challenge because the Commission did not contest his standing.
The court declined to consider new affidavit evidence from a planning official that had not been before the Commission, saying that would turn judicial review into an appeal. It held that the Commission’s assessment of whether the interest might reasonably be seen as influential was reasonable and that its reasons were adequate. It also rejected the Council’s request for a declaration that the Commission was obliged to give advice under section 25 of the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995, noting that the provision was permissive.
The court refused all the reliefs sought. The judgment addressed the legality of the Commission’s determination; it did not conduct a fresh appeal on the underlying evidence.