Jim Mansfield
I am not personally familiar with the Jim Mansfield situation, but from the newspapers I seem to recall that the situation was as follows:
1. He had a decision to grant planning permission from the local planning authority.
2. Nobody had made submissions in the planning process to object (or if they had, their objections had presumably been overcome - as I said, I have no personal familiarity); If you want to object to a planning decision, you must first make submissions during the planning process. This is to stop people bringing out objections at the last minute.
3. An Taisce is exempt from the requirement to make an initial submission to planners - they can go straight to An Bord Pleanala. They lobbed in an appeal against the decision on or close to the last day for appeals. Mansfield had already started work.
In short, if I understand (and remember) the reports correctly, Mansfield started building before the final planning came through BUT in circumstances where he (possibly not unreasonably) thought that the final grant of planning was only a formality. I must say, it doesn't strike me as the sort of development area in which one would have expected An Taisce to take an interest (but mind you I think their appeal was successful, so I presume it was justifiable).
Anyway, in the end, Mansfield received a real financial kicking over all of this. He started with a relatively minor piece of jumping the gun and ended up with a huge expense on a development where he was ultimately refused planning.
Imagine for a moment that you had been granted permission by the local planners for an extension, there were no objections in and you were just awaiting final grant. Is there one among us who would turn away the builders if they turned up the week before the final grant issued instead of the the week after? (Rainyday - you are exempted from replying!)?
I think it entirely possible that the judge in the Mansfield case saw the huge losses that Mansfield has already sustained through his own precipitate action and decided that he has already been punished enough by circumstance. This doesn't strike me as wrong.
By way of more general observation, (and meaning no personal criticism) our courts system is by no means perfect, but comparisons of the sort made at the start of this discussion do not generally serve to promote informed debate. Comparisons of this type are a favourite of the tabloids - in my view they contribute to a growth in cynicism, a general lack of faith in our institutions and ultimately the undermining of such institutions. A reasoned defence is never going to get the same publicity as a snappy headline or soundbite. Such is the way of the world - but it doesn't mean I have to like it.
