Far more than meets the eye behind Sipo decision not to investigate Leo Varadkar.
FIONNÁN SHEAHAN
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God, isn’t Simon Coveney having an awful run of luck with the number of his friends being criminally investigated? None of it reflects badly upon the character of the Fine Gael deputy leader and Minister for Foreign Affairs. It’s just been a series of unfortunate incidents.
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First, there’s his sailing buddy, Paul Hyde, with whom he owned a yacht called Dark Angel. A hardy shipmate, Coveney put him on a State board and then he was appointed by Fine Gael to the planning appeals board. He rose up to deputy chair of An Bord Pleanála and is now facing criminal prosecution over allegations of undeclared conflicts of interest in planning decisions he made.
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Second, there’s his rugby chum, Brendan Mullin. The Irish rugby legend gave Coveney a €2,000 donation before the 2011 general election. Now Mullin is due to stand trial accused of stealing over €500,000 from Bank of Ireland. The nine charges of theft, five charges of false accounting and one charge of deception are alleged to have happened just a couple of years after the donation.
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Third, there’s the political pal who said Coveney couldn’t have been “more loyal, more trusting, more competent, more capable” over the past three years. This difficult period happened to include an 18-month garda investigation for divulging confidential and sensitive material, with a file being sent on to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), who decided not to prosecute. The name of this friend: Leo Varadkar.
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Varadkar says he has been “cleared of criminal wrongdoing and any breach of ethics or standards”. His interpretation emerged after a decision not to investigate him for breach of ethics laws by the body that “promotes transparency and accountability in Irish public life”.
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It’s quite a shame the same body doesn’t believe it has a duty to be transparent or accountable to the public. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Indeed.
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But there’s far more to this ‘decision’ than meets the eye. The non- investigation by the State ethics watchdog raises fundamental issues about its operation. The biggest question: who are the two holders of some of the most important offices in our democracy who did want to investigate Leo Varadkar for breaches of ethics law?
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Such an investigation would have been a big deal, with public hearings, legal teams, witnesses and the potential to be found in breach of the law. It would have been a big problem for the incoming Taoiseach, possibly even preventing him from becoming Taoiseach for a second time.
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The Standards in Public Office Commission, or Sipo, has six members and is chaired by a former High Court judge, Garrett Sheehan. Another four members of Sipo are automatically on it due to the importance of their day jobs in public life.
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Two of these head up the most powerful independent watchdogs in society, whose roles are to probe policies, processes and people in the service of the public: the Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy, and the Ombudsman, Ger Deering. Then there are the two civil servants in charge of running parliament: Clerk of the Dáil Peter Finnegan and Clerk of the Seanad Martin Groves.
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Sipo received a batch of complaints about Varadkar leaking a draft GP contract, marked “confidential”, to his friend, Dr Maitiú Ó Tuathail. Dr Ó Tuathail was head of a now-defunct doctors’ union which was legally not involved in negotiations on a lucrative new deal for doctors. Sipo held off on looking into the matter until after the garda investigation and DPP deliberations were complete. Fair enough. Then the fun began.
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The sixth member of Sipo, former Fianna Fáil senator Geraldine Feeney, was a lobbyist for the doctors’ union at the centre of the affair. Hence, she “recused herself from consideration of the complaints on the grounds of a potential perception of a conflict of interest”.
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Of all the organisations she could have worked for, it was, coincidentally, the one in the middle of one of the most important decisions the State ethics watchdog will ever take. How unfortunate.
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Who could have foreseen it? Actually, the opposition did when Feeney was appointed only two years ago after Sipo had already been asked to investigate. Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Green Party voted her on to the body that “promotes transparency and accountability in Irish public life”. Her absence did prove important.
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Sipo went through its preliminary processes, compiling a report, getting internal and external legal advice, and asking Varadkar for an initial explanation.
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The Tánaiste wrote back that his decision to leak the document to his friend was “in his capacity and role as Taoiseach and head of Government, and was to further the policy goals of the Government”.
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The Standards Commission decided it had no role or remit “to consider either the lawfulness of the action or the extent of the powers of the office of Taoiseach”. Case closed. Nothing to see here. Move along now.
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Except there was a twist in the tale. Despite all the constitutional and legal considerations, two of the members disagreed, but were voted down by the three in favour of not investigating. Sipo isn’t naming the two dissenters or their reasons, but you hardly need to be a rocket scientist to figure out which pair regarded Varadkar’s behaviour as meriting investigation. If the sixth member had been involved, it could well have been a tied vote. Oops.
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Sipo is saying nothing, not even confirming its non-investigation: “Sipo acts at all times in accordance with the principles of natural justice, including the right of the subject of a complaint to privacy.
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“In line with this, and Sipo’s role as an impartial oversight body, the details of complaints are only made public if the matter proceeds to an investigation. The Ethics Acts do not include a requirement to publish a decision not to proceed with a complaint.”
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And this is called promoting “transparency and accountability” in Irish public life. Clear as mud.
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A great little nation.
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