Senior officials warned that reliability issues afflicting the government’s ailing jet had become “intolerable” with the risk of Taoiseach Micheal Martin getting “stuck” overseas for an extended period.
The €8 million Learjet has been repeatedly out of service over the past year and a half with the Department of Defence earlier this year told to hire a charter plane for a trip to Paris and London by the Taoiseach and a delegation.
In internal emails, the Department of the Taoiseach said the hiring of that executive jet – understood to have cost a five-figure sum – had been done because there was no other choice.
An email from Assistant Secretary to the Government Dermot Woods to senior colleagues said: “I must emphasise the strong reluctance with which this course of action is taken, particularly given the additional costs that are entailed, but the recent experiences have made the MATS [Ministerial Air Transport] situation intolerable.
“The Taoiseach’s essential travel to and from Berlin and Brussels recently put this matter into very stark relief again and it is my strong view that things can’t be allowed to continue as they are.”
A county council allowed a private hospital to use three advertising billboards on state-owned land for free for nearly twenty years.
Even after the council’s traffic section told colleagues four years ago that the billboards were a “safety distraction” because of their location at a very busy road junction – they were not removed until the end of last month.
It has also emerged that officials at Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council had planned to meet with the Beacon Hospital about removal of the billboards last year.
However, they decided to postpone it because of the Covid-19 vaccination controversy involving the hospital on the basis “they had more on their minds than billboards”.
The saga began around 2003 or 2004 when the three billboards were first erected on council-owned land at Drummartin Link Road in Dublin’s Sandyford.
In later correspondence, the Beacon said it was their understanding they were available for use once they were “maintained … in good condition”.
However, in November 2017, they looked to regularise the situation writing to the council seeking permission to retain them there.
A letter from them said: “It has been brought to our attention recently that this land is council property and we’ve been asked to remove same or risk receiving litter fines.”
The letter added: “We have obviously maintained them since and they are extremely valuable promotional boards for the businesses.”
Internal discussions in Dun Laoghaire Rathdown council weighed up the pros and cons of granting permission with two sections of the council suggesting a licence fee could be sought for the site.
However, by June 2018, the council had decided the billboards needed to be removed.
In a letter to the Beacon Hospital, the local authority explained how their traffic section had said the advertising panels were “a safety distraction to drivers and other road users on a very busy access route off the M50 motorway”.
It added: “The size; number and location of the signage will also cause problems in the development of future road and cycle tracks infrastructure in the area.”
A year later in 2019 however, nothing had changed, and the signs remained in situ.
A local councillor who had raised questions about them was told there had been “ongoing discussion” about what the next steps should be.
The council said: “It has now been decided and agreed that the Council will write to the owners of the structures requiring their removal within a set timeframe.”
By February 2020, officials were still talking about meeting with the Beacon, but the billboards remained in place a year later.
In February of last year, the council received a complaint about the billboards, including the installation of new lighting at the site, which was now shining into neighbouring buildings.
An internal email about the complaint asked that it not be logged on the council’s internal Customer Relationship Manager system saying it was “one of those things that will take time to sort out”.
Later in April in internal discussions, a council official said there had been plans to meet with the Beacon to “sort this thing out once and for all”.
An email added: “However this did not go ahead as the story broke in the media about the vaccinations etc. so I guessed that they had more on their minds than Billboards then!!”
Another complaint was lodged with the council in autumn last year where details of planning permission for the billboards were sought.
A response to that said it was not a planning matter and that it had been referred on to the council’s property management team.
In November 2021, an official responded to say: “They [the billboards] are an issue I have been dealing with on and off for some time, but unfortunately, we have not been able to devote enough time to it yet to achieve a resolution. However, it will continue to be a project for us until it is sorted out.”
It was only after Right to Know submitted queries to the council that the billboards were finally removed from the junction.
A spokesperson for the council said: “The billboards are not commercial, and no income was received for them. The billboards are in the process of being removed.”
A PR company for the Beacon Hospital said they had no comment to make.
HSE chief Paul Reid accused the Department of Health of “unwarranted slurs” on his staff in a row over leaked recordings of department meetings.
Mr Reid said it was “beyond belief” that a 45-minute meeting had discussed the HSE in such a “disparaging and damaging manner”.
In a message to Department of Health Secretary General Robert Watt, the outgoing CEO of the Health Service Executive fumed over the lack of “any basic standards of respect” for colleagues which were revealed by the tapes.
The furious email followed newspaper reports based on secret recordings of meetings of department staff which were highly critical of the HSE.
They contained references to “fake targets”, concerns about the health service’s “financial sloppiness”, and the credibility of health budgets.
On the day the meetings were first reported, Paul Reid directly emailed Robert Watt to say that what had emerged was “extremely disappointing and frustrating”.
Mr Reid said they had jointly agreed an approach on recruitment and the treatment of the HSE financial accounts for last year.
He wrote: “The fact that a 45-minute meeting appears to have been dominated by such commentary is beyond belief.”
Later, he said: “Any basic standards of respect for colleagues or decent management behaviours appear to be lacking, by quoted attendees at the referenced meeting.
“This is at complete odds with the good collaboration that goes on between our teams, not least of all over the past two years in response to Covid.”
Mr Reid said he appreciated that telephone calls had been made the day before by department staff to apologise about what was about to be reported.
He also said that the chairman of the HSE had been in touch to express the “frustrations” of the board of what had been made public.
Mr Reid added: “I do take my duty of care for staff seriously. Therefore, I would appreciate your views as to how it can be arranged for a full and complete retraction of these remarks and inferences made. Left as they are, they leave utterly unwarranted slurs on reputations.”
RTÉ has been issued with 29 separate sets of legal proceedings for defamation over the past six years with a sharp uptick in cases so far this year.
The cases have cost the broadcaster more than €4.7 million – or an average of around €160,000 each – although not all the cases have yet been closed and costs are likely to rise still further.
RTÉ said it would not be possible to say how often they were threatened with a defamation claim but could provide data on when legal proceedings were actually issued.
They said in 2017, there had been eight cases, four the following year, and another five cases in 2019, according to records released under FOI.
In 2020, there were seven cases, and just one in 2021. However, the number of defamation proceedings has bounced back with four already in the first five months of this year.
Government chief whip Jack Chambers and Tánaiste Leo Varadkar forwarded angry letters from constituents who claimed a new 30 kilometre per hour speed limit in the Phoenix Park was damaging their car or forcing it to cut out altogether.
The representations were forwarded by local TDs to the Office of Public Works (OPW) amid controversy over the availability of parking at Dublin Zoo and the park.
In internal emails, OPW officials warned parking availability was likely to be an ongoing problem as the summer months arrived.
One email said: “The busier the season gets (and with two bank holiday weekends in the next month and a bit), this discussion will probably resurface.”
Emails also explained how motorists parked illegally throughout the park no matter how many warning signs the OPW put in place.
“Will review the signage as requested and organise additional signs,” said one message, “our experience in the past is that they are just ignored.”
In another exchange, the OPW said members of staff might be better avoiding talking about the parking issue on broadcast media.
An email said: “I don’t think it is in OPW’s best interest to debate this emotive issue on air at the moment.”
The OPW also said that much of the parking previously available on Chesterfield Avenue had never been available for zoo parking in the first place.
Chief Park Superintendent Margaret Gormley wrote: “The bulk of the parking spaces was utilised by commuters in the past and not available to Zoo patrons, particularly during the weekend.”
A spokeswoman for the OPW said recent changes in the Phoenix Park had made it a significantly safer space for pedestrian and cyclists.
A new valuation report for the site of a proposed super-prison at Thornton Hall said it sat on some of the most valuable agricultural land in Ireland.
The valuation put an estimated price of €6.5 million on the 164-acre property which was bought for almost €30 million in 2005 as part of plans for the relocation and subsequent redevelopment of the Mountjoy Prison campus in Dublin.
The Department of Justice said the revised valuation gave a fairer value for the property saying there was “significant demand for agricultural land in Dublin” and that a prior estimate of €2.7 million was too low.
Airline passengers won more than €660,000 in compensation, refunds, and expenses last year because of cancellations, delays, or being denied boarding to a plane.
Almost 1,500 cases were dealt with by the aviation regulator with more than two-thirds of them relating to Ryanair and Aer Lingus.
Refunds from airlines ranged in size from €8,185 in one case involving Aer Lingus to just €6.10 in a case involving a British Airways flight.
There were also more than 500 cases where a customer made a complaint to the Commission for Aviation Regulation (CAR) but no refund or settlement ended up being paid.
A significant drop in cases was seen last year with only 1,475 complaints received – just a third of the 4,543 that were logged in 2020.
However, that “record-breaking” figure was due to widespread disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic with mass cancellation of flights.
The Defence Forces found out by accident that the Taoiseach’s department wanted to charter an aircraft to fly Micheal Martin to Paris because officials did not trust the government Learjet would be fit to fly.
Internal records detail how officials in the Taoiseach’s office insisted on hiring a €2,000-per-hour aircraft because of the “absolute necessity” of the Taoiseach’s attendance at meetings in Paris and London in early March.
They said the government’s ageing €8 million Learjet could be kept available on standby if it were functional at the time Mr Martin wanted to travel.
In an email to the Department of Defence, Assistant Secretary to the Government Dermot Woods wrote: “We cannot be in doubt as to his attendance and any of the commercial aviation options too significantly reduce the essential flexibility he will need to have in the limited time availability.
“Therefore, will you arrange please, as the primary option for the three-leg travel, to secure option 5 (Luxaviation Citation CJ3 for 6 passengers) for this occasion? If the Learjet were functional it could act as a back-up if needed.”
Records from the Department of Defence also describe how news of leasing an aircraft was met with “some surprise” in the Air Corps who had readied the Learjet and a crew for the mission.
They only found out about the plan after one of the companies asked to provide a quote for a charter plane rang them directly to inquire about using Baldonnel Airport.
An email to the department from a senior officer said: “You might confirm has your Department taken a decision to contract a civil aircraft for a [ministerial air transport] operation from Casement Aerodrome, without informing this Headquarters or Defence Forces Headquarter, or is this request from the operator a contingency?”
The Air Corps also warned that the charter company were mistaken in thinking flying a private plane into a military airport would be straightforward.
They said they had concerns about a civilian aircraft coming through Baldonnel, especially around the “security precautions” for such a flight.
The Air Corps also warned there would be other difficulties around the supply of fuel and handling without a formal contract in place.
An email from Colonel Dave Corcoran said: “At this point, as requested by you last week, I can confirm that our advice is 1 Operations Wing is ready and able to conduct the MATS operation. Both Learjet and CASA aircraft are serviceable and available for that purpose.
“Please urgently confirm the Department of Defence intentions in relation to this civil flight as soon as possible and whether we should continue to plan the operation ourselves or not?”
In response, officials in the department said they wanted to be able to present several options to the Taoiseach for his journey.
One email said: “Given that the Taoiseach has either been let down on a couple of occasions by the Service recently or it has not met his requirements in relation to length of journey … the consultants Altea were asked to obtain quotes from four companies identified through their research.”
The message added: “What we’re all trying to ensure here is that the Taoiseach does not get let down again and every option has to be explored.”
The Central Bank has swapped more than €2.9 million worth of old punts over the last four years including more than €625,000 in coins.
All the largest exchanges last year were worth less than €10,000, according to records with the highest transaction dealing with £7,724, or €9,808 in ‘new money’.
Figures for 2021 show how just over €400,000 – or £317,124 in punts – was exchanged in notes last year, two decades after the euro first came into circulation.
Remarkably, a further €163,000 – or £128,458 in old pound coins and other loose change – were also exchanged by the Central Bank in 2021.
For some time now, Right to Know has been trying to identify the TDs and Senators who flouted public health guidelines in Leinster House and at the Convention Centre.
These incidents included:
One Fianna Fáil TD who said he would sooner go to jail than wear a mask.
A Labour party representative who was reported to be “aggressive” in telling a member of the compliance team they were not allowed in a meeting room.
A male TD who secretly took photographs of Leinster House staff, and against whom no action was taken.
Multiple reports of aggressive, dismissive, and abusive behaviour by TDs and Senators towards the compliance staff.
Redacted details of this have been published before but we were not happy with the response and believed that how named parliamentarians conduct themselves is a matter of significant public interest.
Our appeal to the Information Commissioner has unfortunately failed and the identities of all the above will remain secret.
And even though we are aware of who most of them are, they will have to remain unidentified because of Ireland’s draconian defamation laws.
In the decision, the Information Commissioner ruled that there was no public interest factor that outweighed the right to privacy of those named in these records.
Additional details were released however, including the party affiliation of certain TDs and Senators, along with specific units within the Oireachtas.
One point worthy of note is that the Oireachtas put a lot of emphasis on how their system of compliance for public health measures could be compromised if the names of those involved were disclosed.
However, long before this decision issued, that compliance system had effectively been dismantled.