Minister 'misinterpreted the requirements' after failure to declare second house in Longford

The CC have a few questions to answer in this which seemed to be missed in all the stuff about Troy. Troy said in one of his first interviews on this that it was the CC that asked him to purchase one of the properties (I think it was the CAB one) because they needed access from this property to another property that the CC owned, why didn't the CC just purchase the property themselves from CAB if this was the case instead of asking Troy to do it and then having to buy it off Troy for more than what Troy paid CAB for it? Either those in the CC are incompetent or there was a cozy little deal made or Troy was lying, I wonder which it is?

Revenue tend to target whole sectors for compliance and the work involved in checking that €14,000 for very small discrepancies would be disproportionate but discrepancies elsewhere in someone's finances could raise a flag.

O Dear, Again & Again, I mentioned yesterday, Fire Certs a very serious matter. Please Note the Blue Tick after Twitter user's name 😉

Lets stop fooling ourselves lads. We have seen this all before and FFG have no intention of fixing it.

When RTE Investigates did their Standards in Public Office program in 2015 it showed a litany of corruption etc

RTÉ Investigates - Standards in Public Office (rte.ie)

We all knew about the likes of Hugh McElvaney (FG), Joe Queenan (FF) etc.

There was talk of reform at the time...yada yada. New Politics etc. A new long overdue bill was even drafted!

RTE Investigates did another 2 programs recently on Councillors gouging on fake expenses. Mainly FF and FG councillors caught.

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

Council chamber secrets: Misconduct, falsehoods & waste (rte.ie)

Council chamber secrets: Misconduct, falsehoods and waste.

"A new era of accountability in local government was promised ten years ago, but has yet to be delivered."

Criminal stuff. Pure and utter fraud. Same outrage and promises to reform....yada yada.

What happened?

In 2015, the prospect of ethics law reform was on the political agenda when a proposed piece of legislation, the Public Sector Standards Bill, was presented to the Dáil.

Under this legislation, a new Office of Public Sector Standards Commissioner was proposed, in addition to various other reforms that had been initially recommended in the Mahon Tribunal.

The commissioner would have the power to initiate investigations, even in the absence of a complaint. (Currently, the Standards in Public Office Commission can only initiate inquiries upon receiving a complaint.) It would also have powers to impose fines.

"For the first time, a uniform framework of ethical regulations will apply at national and local level in Ireland," said Brendan Howlin, the then-Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, in a Dáil debate in January 2016.

"There will now be a consistency of approach to ethical obligations across the public sector and, in a new departure, overarching integrity principles for public officials will be enshrined in legislation."

Of course, all of this sounded promising. But progress on the legislation later ground to a halt.

In August 2017, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe wrote to the Oireachtas Finance Committee to warn that it was "essential that the Committee now quickly moves" to schedule the completion of thecommittee stage of the proposed legislation.

When asked for an update on the legislation in June 2019, an Oireachtas official replied that the Dáil term was due to finish the following month and that "All our remaining meetings are fully accounted for, and there are no plans to deal with this Bill in the remaining time".

The delays continued, and once the 2020 General Election was called, the bill died.

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The bill died. They dont want reform. FFG like the trough.

Revenue and the RTB could make headline news by both investigating Troy, which might crack the whip on others around the country who are either not declaring rent a room relief or are incorrect claiming it, and also those who aren't registering their rental properties with the RTB.

1 investigation by each could whip hundreds or thousands into compliance very quickly.

Now that this story is starting to come back on Martin and Varadkar now because they backed him. There are even questions being asked of the Green and where they are in all of this? The biggest sin in a political party is to make the leader look bad and Troy has made leaders in the 2 major parties look bad. I wonder if Varadkar is regretting his "Top Class" comment now. Can see that haunting him like "its not compulsory but its mandatory" comment haunts Doherty.

More troubling questions about a vacant property in Mullingar, The Minister claimed to be getting €780 pm from Westmeath Co Co

From the examiner.

"Mr Troy has one property in Co Westmeath of which he is 50% owner, a house at 39 Cathedral View in Mullingar. That house, which the minister has been declaring as a rental since he was first elected as a TD in 2011, has been vacant for a number of months"

More from the examiner this morning

They wont resign because of the loss of money, they would rather be seen as greedy and corrupt than resign and take hit in pocket.

Indeed, that question was just blankly ignored.

What happens if they get chucked out? They leave behind their problems for the next government, who then get blamed for them, and people will vote FF and FG in again. And the cycle repeats.

To be fair , do you 🤔

Every party but the Greens have spoken on this. Unless I missed the Greens commenting.