Wicklow County Council is awaiting a response from a county councillor into an official complaint that he failed to declare a professional interest in land he proposed for rezoning last month.
At the council meeting last month, Mr Fachtna Whittle of Fianna Fáil proposed the rezoning of a quarry at Ballylusk, near Ashford, which has been the subject of ongoing legal proceedings over its planning status. The motion was passed by 10 votes to nine.
Mr Whittle is a solicitor with Haughton McCarroll and has represented the owner of the quarry, O'Reilly Brothers Ltd, in these legal proceedings.
The rezoning motion is now the subject of an official complaint by Green councillor Ms Deirdre de Burca, who claimed Mr Whittle was obliged under ethics legislation to inform the council of this.
The legislation in question, the 2001 Local Government Act, sets out a code of conduct for councillors relating to potential conflicts of interest.
Apart from requiring councillors to fill out a register of member's interests, which all members of the council did, it also requires members to declare any beneficial interest in any issue the council is deciding on, and to absent themselves from the proceedings.
The legislation does not explicitly outline what professional areas a beneficial interest covers.
In her complaint, Ms de Burca said that under the legislation Mr Whittle "had a legal responsibility to declare his professional involvement with the site in question at the council meeting on July 12th and absent himself from any rezoning decision that was being made by the council which related to that site".
Yesterday, in a statement to The Irish Times, Wicklow County Council was unable to comment as to whether Mr Whittle had made any verbal declaration during the meeting.
A spokeswoman said that Ms de Burca's complaint had been received and the council was now awaiting a response from Mr Whittle, after which the matter "will be considered further".
Yesterday, staff at Haughton McCarroll said that Mr Whittle was away on holidays and unavailable for comment.
Nobody in the office was in a position to say whether Haughton McCarroll was still acting for the quarry owners, as Mr Whittle was in personal charge of the case.
It is understood that Mr Whittle has told Fianna Fáil colleagues in recent days that he did not believe there was any conflict of interest involved.
The controversial quarry has been the subject of ongoing planning issues since the mid-1990s, following complaints from a number of locals that the quarry did not have full planning permission.
The complaints centred around the claim that the quarry had been significantly expanded during the 1990s and as such would have required full planning permission.
Since then Wicklow County Council has issued a number of enforcement notices on the site, while local residents have also been involved in actions relating to the site.
Last year O'Reilly Brothers began legal proceedings in the High Court seeking a judicial review of a finding by An Bord Pleanála that the quarry required planning permission.