This thread is a good example of why apologies are so rare in Irish public life. This chap, who shares very little responsibility for the problem and may even have done something to curb it, expresses regret that he didn’t do more and all he gets is abuse. Meanwhile hundreds of councillors who actually directly helped to create the problem by zoning the land keep their mouths shut and in most cases probably get re-elected.

I’m sure his sense of regret will be cushioned by his massive pension.

Let’s be fair to An Bord Pleanála and John O’Connor here. O’Connor is expressing regret that they didn’t do more to tackle inappropriate development during the boom, but at least they did something. While I disagree with a great many of their decisions, they were the only state agency to tackle the issue of overzoning by refusing some of the greater excesses of developers and county councils. However they can only deal with that minority of cases which came to them on appeal, so they were never in a position to make a real impact on the problem. The fault lies with the hundreds of county councillors who went on a zoning binge, none of whom have ever expressed regret as far as I know.

I do wish ABP had taken a more skeptical approach to infrastructure planning, however. In the same speech O’Connor expressed satisfaction that they had held out against objections to our massively over-provisioned motorway network.

Policy did seem a far cry from when my embittered geography teacher used to rail against the Bacon Report on low density, one off housing cause he couldn’t build the house he wanted up in Donegal in the mid 90′s. Regret my backside, shame would probably be more appropriate.

What an idiot

Blame the local council gombeens too, many of whom are still sitting down once a week adding co2 to the atmosphere, and who perpetuated all this nonsense when they should never have had the power to do so in the first place.

I’d have more respect for this mandarin if he desisted from the veiled barbs, and told the truth, there was a cosy, not so little, troika of developers, local politicians, and planners, all in it together.

Brown envelopes and junkets were the order of the day. save his regrets It seems unlikely and implausible that he cared less when it mattered

I wonder how much £££ they all made out of zoning.