FF/FG/Green Government - Part 3 - Threadbanned User List in OP

He hasn't a breeze.

Phil made great promises too. He utterly failed yet the blinkered still love him.

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Local government was a key focus of the Mahon Tribunal's work. The public was promised that political reform in this sector would be swift and emphatic.

The then-Minister for Housing and Planning, Jan O'Sullivan, said that the report's recommendations would be implemented "to ensure such behaviour can never, ever happen again".

Her government colleague, Phil Hogan, the then-Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, said he would examine the report and "take whatever further steps are necessary to restore and underpin confidence and transparency in the local government system".

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All lies.

Are you going to answer the questions that were asked of you about the government parties,mainly FG, who promised to act on the Mahon report and introduce measures to stop the corruption at local council level? I am sure some would be interested to hear your side or are you just going to deflect and try get out of the hole you are digging?

It might deflect away from the government. He has been trying to do that for a while now.

What strained relations? As far as I can see we still have very good relations with the UK? Yes Brexit is a pain and wasn't the result that we wanted but there is no strained relations.

I feel stupid arguing with someone who refuses to watch the program but can I just point out, yet again, that last night's program was about council officials and council staff wrongdoings. They are not elected - do you understand this?

Here, click on a county and then read...

Council Chamber Secrets (rte.ie)

By not implementing long promised reform, the government are effectively saying - work away lads, we certainly wont be making you accountable. Nod and a wink. The fish rots from the head.

The actual problem is the government. Tasked with fixing the problem through a set of recommendations handed down by an expensive tribunal that we the taxpayer paid for.

Lest we forget the conference travel expenses that were actually impossible. 2021 investigation.

The local councillors who broke expense rules (rte.ie)

One of the attendees was Fianna Fáil councillor Patrick Gerard Murphy, who told Cork County Council that he left his home in Bantry at 1pm on the Thursday for the seminar.

According to his expense claim, he returned home on Saturday evening – a 736km round trip that entitled him to €630.

But Cllr Murphy also submitted an expense claim to the Cork Education and Training Board, asserting that, on the very same Thursday, he left home to attend an altogether different meeting in Dublin city centre – the annual general meeting of IPB Insurance, which also took place on Friday.

He claimed for a return trip of 668km, entitling him to €558, and received an overnight rate of €133.73 for his stay.

The Gormanston seminar is just one event for which councillors submitted overlapping claims. Over the course of several months, RTÉ Investigates reviewed expense records from every local authority in the country, as well as records from numerous other public bodies that pay councillors' expenses.

The records reveal that hundreds of councillors contravened a provision in the Local Government Act designed to provide transparency about the expenses claimed by local representatives.

They also demonstrate more serious breaches. Many councillors across the country have received double payments, by wrongly claiming expenses from their own local authority and from an external organisation for the same official absence.

Many more examples like this in the link. They must laugh at how naive their voters are.

The Donegal one was interesting too.

A segment on Donegal and the Mulcahy tribunal is set to feature in a hard-hitting edition of RTE Investigates this Wednesday night.

One case to be discussed is the Mulcahy Report into serious allegations of corruption in planning in Donegal. Dáil Éireann has heard more than 40 calls for the publication of the report, which was finished in 2017, but remains with the Department of Housing. A number of counties will be included in the segment as the programme goes through promises made as part of the Mahon report not being implemented.

RTÉ Investigates will also ask why a law introduced to allow inquiries into Council’s cannot be used because 20-years on no Minister has signed the necessary order.  And how public standards legislation ran aground in an Oireachtas Committee. 

New Politics...

Maybe Minister O'Brien will get the finger out on the report (yeah right!) but it's shameful that they have not signed the order to allow for independent inquiries into wrongdoing. The piece of legislation that would have enabled such inquiries was passed over 20 years ago but has never been enacted. Rotten culture and sends completely the wrong message to the councils.

You still don't really understand. Have you watched the program yet? It concerned the planning department in Donegal county council.

More than €170,000 spent on reports into alleged planning… – Donegal Daily

Among the councils in the spotlight was Donegal County Council and the case of former senior planner Gerard Convie. Mr Convie worked with the council for more than 20 years, until 2000, when he was accused of not declaring an interest in a property that was the subject of a pre-planning meeting. He was sacked by Environment Minister, Noel Dempsey, at the council’s request.

Mr Convie took his case to the High Court. The case was settled, with Donegal County Council clarifying that it had not made any allegations of corruption or wrongdoing. The charge of misconduct was withdrawn.

Mr Convie resigned and went into private practice, studying what he believed were irregularities with the planning section in Donegal. On the back of his case studies, Minister John Gormley ordered an inquiry into the allegations against Donegal County Council and separate issues in other counties. The report was published in 2012 but found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Three years later, new Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly initiated another inquiry. Senior counsel Rory Mulcahy completed and delivered a 300 page report in June 2017. However, efforts to have the report released have failed.

RTE Investigates revealed that the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said that Minister Darragh O’Brien would bring the report to Government “in due course”.

Donegal County Council also confirmed to researchers that its role is to assist and cooperate with all statutory inquiries and it is hoped the historical issues involving the allegations can be finalised as soon as possible.

In all, the programme found that the Department has spent more than €170,000 on its three reports, which does not include the cost of its own internal resources and legal bills.

Green Party TD Patrick Costello, who has campaigned for the report to be released, said: “It’s a fundamental public importance that this report comes out.

“It’s only by seeing what’s in this report and understanding the irregularities and what caused them and what was behind them that we can take steps to prevent the next one.”

Publish the damn report!!