The Dáil Public Accounts Committee is to refer to gardaí correspondence submitted to it that makes serious allegations regarding corporate governance and potential criminal issues in the State fisheries agency Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI).
The letter purports to be written by someone close to the board of IFI. However, it is understood the letter is unsigned.
The Irish Times understands that at a private session on Thursday, members of the committee received advice from lawyers for the Oireachtas that they should not formally accept the correspondence.
It is understood the committee decided to refer the correspondence to gardaí under section 19 of the Criminal Justice Act.
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It is unusual for the committee to take action on foot of allegations made in an unsigned letter.
However, it is understood that material contained in the correspondence is sufficiently detailed to lend some credence to the claim that the author is or had an involvement at senior level with the organisation.
IFI has been a troubled State agency for some time. The Public Accounts Committee was told in January that more than two dozen protected disclosures from whistleblowers alleging wrongdoing or setting out concerns in relation to the fishing agency had been sent to its parent department, the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment, since 2022.
The department said it had commissioned seven external investigations into such whistleblower complaints. In two cases all allegations were upheld and in two cases they were rejected. In another case, “multiple allegations” were not upheld while one was substantiated.
In material provided to the committee by its secretary general, Oonagh Buckley, the department said there had already been a number of external reviews and investigations carried out in respect of IFI in recent years. This included a review by a senior counsel in 2022 and an analysis of governance conducted by consultants EY in 2023.
Buckley said Minister of State for Fisheries Timmy Dooley had written to the IFI board last September to signal that another independent review would be carried out “once a new chief executive officer has been appointed and has been embedded in the agency”.
Two cases involving IFI are expected to heard by the Workplace Relations Commission in the coming months.
Meanwhile, separately the Public Accounts Committee was told on Thursday by the Department of Justice that one hotel operator was being paid about €24 million annually to house people fleeing from the conflict in Ukraine.
Department of Justice assistant secretary general Conor Rowley said that the hotel concerned, which is based in Dublin, provided accommodation for about 1,300 people from Ukraine.
Department of Justice secretary general Oonagh McPhillips said there were about 23,000 people from Ukraine in accommodation contracted directly by the State. The Government has 560 contracts with commercial providers of accommodation for people from Ukraine.
She said there were about 40,000 other people from Ukraine living in properties provided under the separate accommodation recognition payment scheme. This provides €600 per month for properties used to house people fleeing Ukraine conflict.
McPhillips said the cost of providing accommodation facilities to people from Ukraine had more than halved over the last two years. She said the provisional cost out-turn for 2025 was €719 million and a provision of €607 million had been made in respect of Ukraine accommodation this year.
She said savings could primarily be attributed to reduced demand for accommodation from commercial providers, which enabled a consolidation of the number of sites contracted by the department.
