Kerry County Council yesterday suspended one senior engineer, extended the probationary period of another for a year and warned a further 25 staff following an investigation into planning irregularities.
The Kerry planning investigation was initiated after two Roscommon County Council officials were suspended and a third official resigned early in January following complaints.
That incident led the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to order all local authorities to investigate whether any of their officials were involved, and to report by the end of March.
Some of the 34 other authorities due to report are expected to copy the disciplinary action taken by Kerry when they produce their findings over the next couple of weeks, sources predicted last night.
Kerry County Council's acting senior executive engineer, Mr Donal Mangan, who was suspended without pay for a week, was found to have concealed the scale of his property interests and hidden his involvement in some planning applications.
In one case Mr Mangan submitted an application in the name of other people "who neither consented nor were they aware that their name was being used as the applicant for planning permission"'.
In all Mr Mangan made 73 planning applications on approximately 200 acres of land. Often, the applications were made even before he had bought the properties. Members of his family submitted another 15 applications.
"The conduct of Mr Mangan . . .is clearly unsatisfactory. He engaged in unauthorised development . . . It does not represent the standard of conduct and behaviour expected," said the report.
However, there was no evidence Mr Mangan had tried to influence the decisions on planning applications, nor was their evidence of corruption or malpractice in his employment, Mr Willie Wixted, the acting assistant county manager, found.
Currently Killarney's town engineer, Mr Mangan, who is not a member of the county council's planning staff, will be reassigned to Tralee "to other duties" when he returns to work.
Another official, Mr Michael Purtill, an executive engineer, has received a warning and had his probationary period extended for a year after investigators criticised his role in a land purchase.
The Kerry investigation, led by the county manager, Mr Martin Nolan, found that 27 planning staff were improperly involved in 148 of the 4,177 planning applications submitted in the county last year.
The investigation shows "that while we could find no evidence of undue influence or any interference with the normal process of planning applications", it was "unacceptable" that so many applications involved staff.
Defending his staff, Mr Nolan said they were trying to provide efficient public services at a time of unprecedented pressure and growth. But he acknowledged a deficiency in the conduct of a minority.
A new code of conduct will come into force for all county council staff from May 1st. From then on staff will have to get written permission from the county manager before they can engage in any outside activity.
Last night, Fine Gael TD Ms Olivia Mitchell said the affair highlighted the need for proper planning that would clearly designate properties to be developed: "If everybody knew what the score was these kind of things would not be happening.
"There has been a blind eye turned to this for years. This must have been the culture. There has been an acceptance that the local engineer would give you a hand, a bit of advice," she said.
