Collins says ‘no law was broken’ in relation to wife’s purchase of property

Minister of State Niall Collins has said “no law was broken” in relation to his wife’s purchase of a property from Limerick County Council in 2008.

The Fianna Fáil TD said that in hindsight and given the focus and “perception amongst some” it would have been better had he not participated in a local area committee meeting in January 2007 “even though it is absolutely clear that my wife did not benefit in any way” from his attendance.

People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy described Mr Collins’s statement as “utterly unsatisfactory” and criticised the lack of opportunity for the Opposition to ask direct questions of him in the Dáil.

He told The Irish Times he was considering making a complaint to the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) alleging that Mr Collins had breached the code of conduct for councillors.

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Spokesmen for the three Coalition leaders all confirmed Mr Collins continued to have their confidence in the wake of his Dáil statement.

The Ditch website first raised questions about Mr Collins’s involvement in the 2007 local authority area committee meeting that recommended the disposal of the property at Patrickswell, Co Limerick.

His wife, Dr Eimear O’Connor, had previously approached the council about the possibility of it selling the land.

An open market process led to her purchasing the site for €148,000 as the highest bidder.

A full meeting of the council took the final decision to sell in 2008, more than a year after Mr Collins ceased to be a councillor when he was elected to the Dáil.

In his statement on Thursday, Mr Collins said he was “in absolutely no doubt” that his actions regarding the sale by the council of land in Patrickswell had been “at all times legally correct”.

He said: “It is important to state that an area committee of a local authority ... does not have disposal rights in regard to the sale of council property.

“This is a reserved and statutory function of the full county council by law.”

He said a number of offers had been received through an independent auctioneer over a period of at least six months and a full meeting of the council in 2008 had approved the sale for €148,000.

Mr Collins said that at the time of the 2007 local area committee meeting “neither I nor my wife had any pecuniary or beneficial interest in that property”.

He said “no law was broken” and he “did not participate in any decision that authorised the sale of this land”.

Earlier, Tánaiste Micheál Martin hit out at the Ditch website, describing it as “a political organisation” that wants to attack and undermine confidence in the Government.

Mr Martin said the Ditch was partly funded by Web Summit founder Paddy Cosgrave, while Chay Bowes was a founding member of the website and that both were political opponents of the Government.

He said if one read the tweets of Mr Cosgrave and Mr Bowes it was clear that their agenda was to “take down the Government”, which was fine and they were entitled to, but that he would not facilitate it “every week”.

The Fianna Fáil leader said what really alarmed him was that the Russian embassy in Ireland had praised Mr Bowes with a tweet on an essay he had written “blaming the West for the war in Ukraine”. He said Mr Bowes had also been on RT India on April 9th where a caption referred to him as “Russia Today correspondent”.

“That’s what’s behind On the Ditch lads,” the Tánaiste.

Mr Martin’s remarks were later rejected and ridiculed by Mr Cosgrave and Mr Bowes in posts on Twitter.

Mr Murphy defended the website in the Dáil, saying: “No wonder you’re attempting to undermine the Ditch, because the Ditch has been quite successful in exposing corrupt, unethical practices by Ministers in your Government and in your party”.