Robert Troy has become an embarrassment to the Government and the longer the controversy about his failure to fully declare his property interests drags on the worse it is going to get. At a time when the Coalition is struggling to deal adequately with the housing crisis the revelations about the Minister of State’s failure to fully declare his property interests will only add to the pressure.
The Minister said yesterday that he was embarrassed to have inaccurately filed his Oireachtas register of members’ interests documents and he apologised to his constituents and the Dáil. He revealed in a radio interview that he owned a total of 11 properties, nine of which were rented out.
The Westmeath TD’s flimsy defence about his failure to fully declare his property holdings is that he misinterpreted the requirements for the annual declaration and thought he only had to include the holdings in place on the last day of the year of the return. As well as failing to make proper declarations it has also emerged that Troy has repeatedly used his position as a Dáil deputy to call for more public funding for a rental scheme from which he benefits directly, without telling the members of the House about his potential conflict of interest. Troy’s Fianna Fáil colleague Thomas Byrne has described the failure to make full disclosures as “naive”. That is the most charitable thing that can be said about them.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin had defended his junior Minister as the controversy developed but at this stage he needs to make a cold assessment of Troy’s fitness for office as well as taking into account the damage the Minister’s continuing presence is doing to the Coalition’s reputation. The Opposition is demanding more answers to the various questions raised by Troy’s behaviour and the issue is likely to dominate Dáil proceedings when the House returns in a few weeks’ time. With the public looking to the Government for a serious response to the cost of living crisis this will be an unwelcome distraction from the real challenges ahead.