Siteserv Murphy complaint likely to go to Dáil committee

The Ceann Comhairle, Seán Barrett, is likely to refer Siteserv's request to amend the Dáil record in relation to the company to the Oireachtas Committee on Procedure and Privileges, according to an Oireachtas spokeswoman.

The company wrote to Mr Barrett this week seeking to get the record amended in relation to what it says are "unfound" and "false" accusations in recent parliamentary speeches by Catherine Murphy, the Independent TD.

Ms Murphy, who has criticised aspects of the IBRC sale of Siteserv to Denis O'Brien, has this week defended her speeches, saying she was acting on the concerns of citizens and engaged in a search for answers.

Expunged

The company is seeking to get the parts of her speeches it wants expunged from the record under an obscure Dáil standing order, 59 (3b). This deals with complaints about alleged abuses of Dáil privilege that may be defamatory.

The Siteserv letter was dated May 20th, the outer limit of a two-week deadline under the standing order to make a complaint regarding Ms Murphy’s Dáil speech of May 6th.

Deadline

A request in the letter for amendments to the record of her speech of April 21st would appear to be outside of the deadline, the spokeswoman said, although she said the decision on this would be taken by the Ceann Comhairle or the committee.

The spokeswoman said the committee would probably “meet and look at the situation, before writing to [Ms Murphy]”.

One possible difficulty, however, is that Ms Murphy sits upon the Committee on Procedure and Privileges, along with six government TDs, one from Fianna Fáil and one from Sinn Féin.