Manager told to apologise to woman

The Minister for the Environment has told the Kilkenny county manager to apologise to a woman placed under pressure to sell a site to a councillor.

The Minister, Mr Dempsey, told the manager, Mr P.J. Donnelly, he acted outside his remit in the way he intervened in the matter nearly two years ago.

The owner of the site near Thomastown, Ms Judith Ashton, complained to the Minister about the intervention of Mr Donnelly after she refused to sell the site to independent councillor Mr Dixie Doyle.

She said she felt under "insidious pressure" to sell after Mr Donnelly became involved and the council offered her an alternative site in Inistioge, for which she had not applied.

In a letter to Mr Donnelly on behalf of Mr Dempsey, an assistant secretary of the Department, Mr John Cullen, said the manager's actions were outside his remit: "Ms Ashton had a perfectly valid planning permission and was, and is, legally entitled to develop her site in accordance with any such permission. Your actions and those of your officials could be open to the perception that they were designed to discourage a citizen from exercising her legal right, conferred by the local authority itself, to develop her property."

The council said an apology had been issued to Ms Ashton by Mr Donnelly for any "perceived pressure".