Rachel Kenny is third senior figure to exit An Bord Pleanála
Senior Ditch An Controversies Examiner' Plete The With Of Bord Pleanála There Change Rachel And Now At Independent 'irish Aired Planning Since In The Ireland’s The Has Been A Management Body That Departure Engulfed The Kenny
Rachel Kenny, who was one of the figures at the centre of major controversy in An Bord Pleanála last year, is leaving her post as director of planning at the body.
Staff at An Bord Pleanála were informed by email last Friday that Ms Kenny was departing from the organisation after a turbulent 14 months.
The controversy which broke out in March 2022 about possible conflicts of interest at the body included allegations that Ms Kenny had overseen an appeal near her home and that she had been involved in cases where her former husband was part of an application to the appeal body.
An investigation into these allegations found she had no case to answer, although the staff union in An Bord Pleanála was highly critical of how the investigation was carried out.
On Friday, the board’s interim chairwoman, Oonagh Buckley, told staff that Ms Kenny’s “period of service with An Bord Pleanála is shortly coming to an end and we will soon be making arrangements for her replacement”.
“I want to wish Rachel the best in her future career,” said Ms Buckley.
Ms Kenny is the third senior figure to leave since the controversy arose. In May 2022, deputy chairman Paul Hyde resigned and in November chairman Dave Walsh took early retirement in the week after the published the contents of a damning internal review of the controversies.
Attempts to contact Ms Kenny over the weekend were unsuccessful.
The interim chair, Ms Buckley, was brought into An Bord Pleánala last January in the wake of the controversies.
She is now scheduled to move to the job of secretary general of the Department of the Environment and Climate Change in September.
Since arriving, she has created a new post of director of legal services and has added a second director of planning to the body in order to cope with the expected volume of work associated with offshore wind energy.
Ms Buckley also attracted some negative publicity when she singled out a solicitor’s firm for having a “lucrative” business in judicial reviews and make comments about “activist judges” in the planning process.