Public comments by the President of the High Court about a shortage of judges and postponement of trials caused serious disquiet in government departments and were described as “most unfortunate” and an “implicit criticism” of the government and Áras an Uachtaráin by senior officials.
Ms Justice Mary Irvine had said the High Court would start the 2021 legal year with seven judges short of what they had been promised only months earlier by the Department of Justice.
Internal records reveal how the Department of Justice was taken aback by the comments and asked why they had not been given a “heads up” on what was coming.
In an email, Oonagh Buckley – a deputy secretary at the Department of Justice – wrote to the CEO of the Courts Service Angela Denning about the comments.
“It would have been useful to have received a heads up about the below as we discussed yesterday,” she told Angela Denning in an email on 1 October.
“As you will appreciate, the implicit criticism of the Aras and the Government is very unfortunate.”
Ms Denning responded to say that she herself had been given no advance notice, meaning she had not been in position to give them any warning.
She wrote: “It is my understanding from the Chief Justice that no criticism of Government or of your department was intended.
“I will speak to the [incoming] Chief Justice at out first meeting after his appointment to see if we can put an arrangement in place so that you at least know that something like this is coming.”
Fáilte Ireland signed up to a multi-million RTÉ Weather sponsorship believing it was a “strong fit” despite inclement weather often proving a “barrier” to holidaying in Ireland.
According to an internal briefing, the deal was an opportunity to meet the challenges of the country’s notoriously changeable weather “head-on” and inspire Irish people to get away at home.
Fáilte Ireland had said one of their biggest challenges was convincing people to take short breaks within Ireland and that the weather sponsorship would keep this message “always on”.
An internal business case said: “We know our greatest barrier to driving penetration is that people don’t think of taking short breaks. It is not top of mind as something they could spend their free time doing.”
The tourism agency signed up to a three-year sponsorship deal with RTÉ late last year replacing long-time sponsors Avonmore.
The Information Commissioner has directed release of records held by the Department of Health about the supply of AstraZeneca vaccines to Ireland.
The early months of the vaccination rollout in the EU were dogged by delays and supply issues, which culminated in high-profile legal action against the company.
The Department of Health mishandled the request for records at both initial request and internal review, and it was a “deemed refusal” at both these stages.
The department claimed the records were exempt under Section 30 and Section 36 of the FOI Act without ever providing any detailed reasons for why this was so.
During the review process, AstraZeneca also objected to release of certain information contained in the records.
However, the Information Commissioner found that the information had been the subject of considerable public controversy, and that some of it was already in the public domain.
The case highlights a significant failing in FOI in Ireland where reviews are not concluded until over twelve months have passed.
It means that even in cases where requesters are fully successful, the information can almost be historic by the time it is released.
These records were of significant public interest when they were first sought early last year.
However, with the passage of time, that has inevitably declined and what requesters are often left with are pyrrhic victories.
The failures identified in the original handling of the request, and the incorrect decision made by the department, are not the subject of any sanction, or instruction to do better.
And there is nothing that will stop the public body involved continuing these long-standing poor practices well into the future.
The Department of Justice said that the international standing of Ireland and the Data Protection Commission were now so interdependent that a significant increase in staffing was required.
Department officials also told of how investment in garda air support was essential because police helicopters were so old and in deteriorating condition.
In a pre-budget submission, the department sought €840,000 in funding for border management to deal with growing queues at Dublin Airport due to public health checks.
They also advised how Forensic Science Ireland would need extra support as it moves to new headquarters and of “a significant negative effect” on the justice system if it couldn’t keep up its service levels during the move.
You can read the full pre-budget submission below:
The Department of the Taoiseach was quizzed about what controls were in place for the safekeeping of an €8,000 Rolex watch that was gifted to the Ceann Comhairle.
The Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) contacted the department after it emerged that the valuable item had been kept locked in a safe at Government Buildings for almost two years.
In an email, the C&AG asked if the Department of the Taoiseach had a list of all such high-value gifts, what controls were in place for them, and whether it was listed as the property of the Taoiseach or the Oireachtas.
The Rolex watch remains in storage at the department despite a request by Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl that it be sold, and the proceeds given to Trócaire.
Mr Ó Fearghaíl had been presented the watch on an official trip to the UAE in late 2018 but ethics rules on valuable gifts meant he was not allowed to retain it.
Relations between Greyhound Racing Ireland and one of the country’s most prominent animal welfare charities soured over an investigation into two mistreated greyhounds.
Records released under FOI detail how the two dogs had been locked in padlocked “filthy kennels” for up to three years and were infested with fleas and ticks.
The dogs were said to be “covered in filth” from having nowhere to lie but in their own waste with one having bled from a severe flea infestation.
After they were rescued, the DSCPA posted an image to social media of one of the dogs Katie cowering on the floor after she had been taken into their care.
However, Greyhound Racing Ireland (GRI) called for the post to be removed as neither of the dogs had ever actually raced.
A social distance index (SDI) that would have measured people’s adherence to public health guidelines on a rolling fifteen-minute basis was one of the plans considered by government as part of plans to tackle Covid-19.
The so-called SDI index would have captured mobile phone data by counting phones in tiles of 25 metres every fifteen minutes to monitor adherence to social distancing, “crowd hotspots”, and travel.
It was one of a several ideas floated during discussions between the Department of the Taoiseach and consultancy EY in the autumn and winter of 2020, according to records released under FOI.
The proposal came with a warning that “clearly, care [was] required to balance with citizen rights” but that a successful “proof of value” trial of the technology had already taken place in London.
However, the plan was not followed through with the Department of the Taoiseach saying the records had been part of a “springboard for a frank discussion” on what was known as the 1 Government Centre Project (1GC) to deal with the pandemic.
The Department had originally refused to release most of the records but changed their position after the case was appealed to the Information Commissioner.
Exploratory work took place on the Social Distance Index in both Cork and Dublin, according to presentations that were released. However, there were “specific quality issues” with the data available for Dublin.
The records also discuss the setting up of a Covid-19 nerve centre called “Room 350” to monitor disease spread and compliance with restrictions.
Three daily briefings would be delivered there with deep dive reports once a week. An alert system was also discussed saying: “WhatsApp Updated in the event of agreed specific criteria being breached.
“Criteria focusing on case numbers accelerating or hospital approaching capacity.”
The records also cast new light on how Covid-19 was spreading in the run-up to Christmas 2020, when infections soared out of control leading to a wave of illness and death in early 2021.
A former Fianna Fáil TD said he had to spend €440 in taxpayers’ money to post a copy of a research report to other politicians after being told he could not circulate it through Leinster House’s internal post.
Deputy Marc MacSharry also claimed at least one of the letters sent had later been opened by Oireachtas staff and that Ireland was “deteriorating into a Marxist Republic” in an email to the Ceann Comhairle.
The saga began last July when Mr MacSharry was trying to distribute a copy of a report he and his staff had authored on the impact of Covid-19 on mental health.
He said the work had taken six months to complete and that he had hoped to have a copy of it sent to every member of the Oireachtas.
However, after bringing the reports to Leinster House, he was told that such material could not be freely distributed without the permission of individual party whips.
In his letter to the Ceann Comhairle, he said: “I thought how ridiculous is that? Naturally, I would expect a code of conduct to prevent unscrupulous members seeking to raise money or sell tickets by way of the internal mailing system.
“But when it’s important research I thought in the interest of basic common sense, and the reality that those elected here have an actual mandate that maybe we might be allowed share research on mental health. Clearly not!”
He said it would have taken far too long to contact all the individual whips including representatives for “god knows how many other pop-up de facto parties”.
Mr MacSharry then detailed how he had gone to his office and affixed prepaid postage stamps from Leinster House stationary onto his “plain A4 envelopes”.
He said this had probably cost the taxpayer around €440 in postage, not to mention the costs involved in having the letters brought to a mailing centre … only to be immediately returned to Leinster House.
Mr MacSharry then said not to be “outdone by yesterday’s stupidity”, he discovered a green crate full of his letters at the enquiries reception of the building the following day.
He said they had not been distributed and wrote that he could see “one of them at least had been opened”.
When he asked an usher about this, Mr MacSharry said he was told: “No we have not opened any of them YET [his emphasis] Deputy, we have to wait for the head usher.”
Mr MacSharry said he had been nineteen years in the Oireachtas and had witnessed first-hand the “deterioration of the standing and treatment of members”.
He wrote: “The fact that our post is now being pre-read and subject to an approval process … to determine whether it can be delivered is a serious cause for concern to me.
“Sadly, I have believed for some time that as a nation we are well on our way to deteriorating into a Marxist Republic and now when one considers that members’ correspondence to other members must be subject [to] an approval process by Houses of the Oireachtas staff without my knowledge not to mention the wider nonsense described above is truly alarming.”
You can read the correspondence between Mr MacSharry and the Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl below.
Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was hit with a wave of complaints over proposals to tax loans from the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad.
The Department of Finance had said before the budget it planned to tackle inter-family loans by linking them to the best interest rate somebody could have secured from a financial institution.
However, the change was withdrawn at the eleventh hour with Minister Donohoe saying it had the potential to “create inconsistencies”.
Records from the Department of Finance detail a flurry of correspondence to the minister from members of the public and government colleagues late last year.