The number of complaints received by the Standards Commission under the Ethics Acts remains low. 2014 saw a small increase from the previous year’s total of 29 complaints to 39. However, the number of complaints which were valid within the terms of the Ethics Acts fell from 16 in 2013 to 12 in 2014. The Commission considers that this underscores the difficulty of making valid complaints under the present legislation.
In its annual report for 2013, the Commission reported on its investigation of a complaint concerning former Councillor Pádraig Doherty, Donegal County Council. The Commission published its investigation report on 17 June 2014. It found that Mr Doherty had contravened sections 168 and 169(3) of the Local Government Act 2001, had acted in disregard of provisions of the Code of Conduct for Councillors and had done a series of ‘specified acts’ within the meaning of the Standards in Public Office Act 2001 in relation to certain claims for travelling and subsistence expenses from Donegal County Council and from Údarás na Gaeltachta.
The investigation report, together with full details of the Standards Commission’s findings and determinations, is available on the Commission’s website.
In forwarding the investigation report to Mr Brendan Howlin TD, Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Commission informed the Minister that the Commission was concerned at the scope for abuse by persons making claims to more than one public body and requested that he give consideration to putting in place arrangements across the public service for cooperation by public bodies in ensuring that only the appropriate amounts within the relevant regulations are paid in response to claims by persons to more than one body in respect of the same period.
The Commission also recommended that there be a requirement for expenses claims to be submitted in a timely manner and that claimants be required to preserve some contemporaneous record of the basis of claims submitted.
Minister Howlin replied to the Commission Chairperson setting out the requirements for claimants and for public bodies in dealing with travelling and subsistence expenses.
He also indicated that the development of IT systems to check across different sectors or to check against organisations not covered by such shared services was beyond scope.
The Commission also forwarded its report to Mr Phil Hogan TD, Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government. In his response, the Minister stated that the law has been amended to require an elected member who receives expenses from a body that he or she is a member of by virtue of being a Councillor to submit to his local authority a report each quarter of the expenses received (including details of mileage travelled) from the body concerned.
The Minister also stated that he had made regulations to require local authorities to maintain public registers of payments made to councillors, including details of payments made to its elected members who receive expenses from bodies of which they are members by virtue of being Councillors, which information can be used to ensure no double payments are made.
The Commission welcomes the Ministers’ responses and the measures undertaken to ensure against improper claiming of travelling and subsistence expenses. However, it remains of the opinion that a whole of public service approach to preventing and detecting double claiming should be adopted. In this regard, the measures undertaken could be adopted across all sectors of the public service to require any person who may be claiming expenses from more than one public body to provide to each such body on a quarterly basis a report of all expenses received (including details of mileage travelled) from such other body as he/she is submitting claims to. Alternatively, persons making expenses claims should be required to claim all allowable expenses in relation to public service from one body only — usually this will be their employer — and for that body to recoup relevant expenses from other public bodies, as appropriate.
The Commission received a complaint from Councillor Frank McBrearty, then Mayor of Donegal County Council and Mr Seamus Neely, County Manager, concerning Councillor Dessie Larkin. The complaint centred on alleged contraventions of Part 15 of the Local Government Act 2001 in relation to the claiming of expenses from both Donegal County Council and the Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly for attendance at conferences in Mullingar, County Westmeath, Ballinlough, County Roscommon, Westport, County Mayo and for attending a meeting at the offices of the Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly in Ballaghadereen, County Roscommon.
The Commission published its investigation report on 19 December 2014. It found that Mr Larkin had contravened sections 168 and 169(3) of the Local Government Act 2001, had acted in disregard of provisions of the Code of Conduct for Councillors and had done a series of ‘specified acts’ within the meaning of the Standards in Public Office Act 2001 in relation to certain claims for travelling and subsistence expenses from Donegal County Council and from the Border, Midland and Western Regional Assembly. The Commission sent its investigation report to the Director of Public Prosecutions.
The investigation report, together with full details of the Standards Commission’s findings and determinations, is available on the Commission’s website.
In response to the Commission’s recommendations in its investigation report the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government, replied stating that he had:
(1) made regulations, entitled the Local Government Act 2001(Part 15) Regulations 2015 (S.l. No. 29 of 2015) which -
(2) amended the relevant Directions requiring local authorities to revise their claim forms for travelling and subsistence allowances as follows -
The Commission welcomes the measures taken by the Minister in this regard.
The Commission reported in its annual reports for 2012 and 2013 on a complaint received from the County Manager and Mayor of Donegal County Council in May 2012 about a number of expenses claims made by Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill in his former capacity as a member of the Council and of Údarás na Gaeltachta. They also complained that he had not properly attended the whole of some conferences which he was delegated to attend, and in respect of which attendance he had been reimbursed expenses. In their complaint, the Manager and Mayor alleged that he may have done specified acts within the meaning of the Ethics Acts in this regard.
The Standards Commission appointed an Inquiry Officer to conduct a preliminary enquiry into the complaint. Following consideration of the Inquiry Officer’s report, the Commission decided that it was appropriate to carry out an investigation under section 23 of the Ethics Act to determine whether Senator Brian Ó Domhnaill had contravened provisions of Part 15 of the Local Government Act or had done a specified act or acts.
Following correspondence between the Commission and Senator Ó Domhnaill, or his advisers, as to the role of the Irish language in the investigation and as to whether the complaints originated from anonymous person(s), Senator Ó Domhnaill subsequently made an application for judicial review of the Commission’s arrangements for the investigation hearing on the grounds that he was entitled to have the hearing held by Commissioners who were in a position to understand his evidence which he intended to present in Irish without the aid of translation. He further objected to the examination of the complaint in that the identity of the complainants was not disclosed in accordance with section 8 of the Standards in Public Office Act 2001.
The court found that while the initial complaints to Donegal County Council were anonymous, those complaints before the Commission were not and the Commission had not acted contrary to the provisions of section 8 of the Standards in Public Office Act 2001 in this regard. The court rejected the argument that all the members of the Commission must be bilingual before being able to adjudicate in the matter. The court found that there was no need to adjudicate on the question of whether the Commission’s legal representatives were obliged to communicate in Irish in this matter, as they had in fact done so once Senator Ó Domhnaill indicated in March 2013 that he wished to correspond in that language.
Senator Ó Domhnaill’s legal representatives subsequently informed the Commission that he intended to appeal the decision to the Supreme Court. At the time of writing, the matter is before the Court of Appeal.
The Commission reported in previous annual reports on its investigation into a complaint received concerning former Councillor Oisín Quinn, Dublin City Council and on an unsuccessful judicial review application made by Dublin City Council and Councillor Quinn against the Commission.
In accordance with section 180(4)(a) of the Local Government Act 2001, the Commission’s investigation report was considered by the elected members of Dublin City Council on 23 June 2014. A resolution was passed noting the contents of the report and resolving that no further action be taken in the matter. The City Council agreed that the Protocol Committee should consider aspects of the report regarding future implications for members.
The Standards Commission has reported in each of its Annual Reports since 2004 on the large increase in the scope of the Ethics Acts in terms of the numbers of public bodies in the public service in which the Minister for Finance and latterly the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform has prescribed designated directorships and designated positions of employment.
In its report for 2013, the Commission reported that the most recent regulations in this regard had been made in July 2013 and that regulations that would ordinarily have been due to be made to come into effect on 1 January 2014 had not been made.
Regulations were subsequently made on 29 January 2015. These regulations brought the 16 Education and Training Boards into the remit of the Ethics Acts more than eighteen months after their establishment. Other bodies listed in the regulations for the first time include the Child and Family Agency, Irish Water, the Credit Review Office, the Office of Regulator of National Lottery, the Charities Regulatory Authority, the Strategic Banking Corporation of Ireland, the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission.
The Standards Commission remains of the opinion that persons in all public bodies who potentially may have conflicts between the functions they perform and interests they and persons connected to them hold must be subject to the obligations of the Ethics Acts to ensure that public functions are performed solely in the public interest. For that reason, it considers that regulations updating the lists of such persons must be made when required to ensure comprehensive coverage.
The Council of Europe’s Group of States Against Corruption (GRECO) carries out evaluations of its 49 member states’ frameworks for preventing corruption. During 2014, GRECO carried out a 4th Round Evaluation on Corruption Prevention in respect of Members of Parliament, Judges and Prosecutors in Ireland.
The GRECO evaluation team visited Ireland and met with relevant persons, including representatives of the Standards Commission. The report of the team’s evaluation was adopted at a plenary meeting of GRECO on 10 October 2014 at which the Commission was also represented.
The Commission made eleven recommendations, five of which referred to parliamentarians. These were:
The evaluation report is available on the GRECO website.
The Commission welcomes the recommendations, a number of which were previously recommended by the Commission itself, in particular the recommendation for a uniform and consolidated values-based normative framework. The Commission expects that the forthcoming Public Sector Standards Bill will provide such a framework.
In its Annual Report for 2014, the Commission noted that the Government had announced in its legislative programme for the 2014 Spring/Summer Session that the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform intended to publish a Public Sector Standards Bill during 2014. The Commission noted that in the context of its response to the Final Report of the Mahon Tribunal the Government had decided, inter alia, to take the opportunity to undertake a full review of how the existing legislative framework for ethics can be reformed in order to develop a single, comprehensive legislative framework grounded on a clear and comprehensive set of principles. The Commission had first sought such a consolidation of the legislation in its 2009 Annual Report.
While at the time of writing the Bill has yet to be published, it is understood that work is proceeding on the General Scheme of the Bill and that a public consultation exercise will be undertaken on its contents. The Commission looks forward to contributing to the development of the proposed legislation.
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