The Fianna Fáil junior minister Niall Collins is facing calls to answer questions in the Dáil about his wife’s purchase of a property from Limerick County Council in 2008, amid increasing Government nervousness about the controversy, as opposition TDs insisted he had breached the law.
Mr Collins was part of a local area committee of the council that recommended disposal of the property in 2007 when he was a member of the local authority. After an open market process that concluded after he had ceased to be a member of the authority, the property was bought by his wife, who had previously approached the council about selling.
Mr Collins has been sharply criticised for his apparent failure to declare his wife’s interest in buying the property or recuse himself from the local committee’s recommendation.
The allegations were first reported in the Ditch, an investigative news website.
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The leaders of the Coalition parties were all critical of Mr Collins, with the Taoiseach Leo Varadkar saying that it would have been “better practice” had he declared his interest, while the Green leader Eamon Ryan said that he “should have recused himself”.
In the Dáil, Opposition parties repeatedly sought to raise the issue, demanding that Mr Collins come before deputies and answer questions on the issue. The People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy said that Mr Collins’ “failure to recuse himself, his failure to declare a conflict of interest is not only a breach of the code of ethics but a breach of that legislation and an indictable offence”.
He pointed to the Local Government Act, which requires that a member of any local authority or committee of a local authority, must disclose his interest and withdraw from the meeting, where any interest that he or a person connected to him is being discussed.
But Mr Varadkar said that he was “confident that he has not breached that aspect of the Act”.
Mr Varadkar also defended Mr Collins’ intention not to submit himself to a question-and-answer session in the Dáil, saying that “this place is a parliament, not a kangaroo court”.
In a statement issued late on Monday night, Mr Collins said that the process was “open” and “transparent” and added that he was not a member of the council in September 2008 when the sale was completed.
He also said that when the local area committee decided to recommend a sale, neither he nor his wife had any “pecuniary or beneficial” interest in the property. But the decision to sell the property was made following an inquiry from solicitors acting for Mr Collins’ wife, Dr Eimear O’Connor.
Government sources insisted that the property was sold to the highest bidder after a public process.
Although there is nervousness around Government about the matter, there is also a determination that another Minister should not be lost for what many see as – at worst – a minor issue that took place a long time ago.
But the sense from the opposition benches was that the controversy is likely to continue to dog the Government over the coming days, at least until Mr Collins makes his Dáil statement. It will be the second time in two months that the Limerick deputy has made a personal statement to the Dáil on issues regarding personal property dealings following stories on the Ditch website. In early March he made a brief statement to a sparsely attended Thursday afternoon session of the Dáil, leading to criticism from opposition TDs.
