THE STATE’S ethics watchdog has ruled there is no basis to a complaint about the handling of the Poolbeg incinerator development by the then environment minister John Gormley.
The Standards in Public Office commission said there was no basis to initiate a full public investigation under the Ethics Acts into the complaint made in July 2010 by present Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan when he was Fine Gael spokesman.
Mr Gormley, former leader of the Green Party, said the ruling showed he had acted with propriety. He also contended that Mr Hogan’s complaint had been politically motivated.
The formal complaint alleged Mr Gormley breached the code of conduct for office holders in his handling of the planned waste incinerator in Poolbeg. Among the grounds of Mr Hogan’s complaint was an alleged conflict of interest as Mr Gormley is also a TD for the constituency, Dublin South East.
He also accused Mr Gormley of deliberately using his office to frustrate and delay the achievement of the project.
The commission appointed a senior official as an investigating officer and he conducted an extensive preliminary investigation over a period of a year to ascertain if a full investigation was required.
When Mr Hogan became Minister he tried to withdraw the complaint but was told he could not do so.
Mr Gormley was informed last week that the process has come to an end. He said he was glad of the outcome.
“One of my regrets is that this has been a waste of taxpayers’ money and the valuable time of civil servants. This was a politically motivated attack by Fine Gael.
“It’s ironic that Fine Gael used every opportunity to say I was not doing enough to stop Poolbeg. It then switched tack and said I was doing too much. And then when Phil Hogan became Minister he conveniently withdrew the complaint.”
Mr Hogan’s spokeswoman said he respected the ruling of the commission and that he would not be responding to Mr Gormley’s assertion of his complaint being politically motivated.
Mr Gormley said he would have been prepared to have gone through the full public process.
The proposed facility at Poolbeg is being built by the international waste company Covanta. It has proved hugely controversial and led to a concerted protest campaign by local residents in Ringsend and Sandymount and by public representatives in Dublin South East, including Mr Gormley.
Mr Hogan alleged that a number of decisions made by Mr Gormley as Minister were designed to deliberately frustrate the process. They included the waste-facility levies capturing large-scale incinerators, a review of waste-management policy and his decision to appoint a senior counsel to brief him on the contracts between local authorities in Dublin and Covanta.
For his part, Mr Gormley had always maintained those decisions were well-grounded and in the best interests of the public. He also said he believed Mr Hogan’s complaint seemed to have been written on his behalf by Covanta, a claim Mr Hogan angrily denied.