Niall Collins statement on Limerick property unlikely to silence questions

Fianna Fáil junior minister Niall Collins has issued a statement is response to claims by The Ditch, an investigative news website, saying that the purchase of a property – said by The Ditch to have been bought by his wife – was “transparent and ... open to all”.

However, it does not answer a number of the allegations made in news website’s reports.

Reports by The Ditch concerned a property that it says was purchased by Mr Collins’s wife from Limerick County Council in 2008.

In his statement, Mr Collins said: “In September 2008 at a statutory meeting of the Limerick County Council the sale of a property in Patrickswell was approved and sold following a transparent and open sales process, which was open to all.

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“For the record I was not a member of the council in September 2008, having been elected as a TD in May 2007. Before the sale in 2008, the property was advertised in the local public press.

“When the council executive recommended to the Bruff LEA committee that the property should be put up for sale in January 2007, neither I nor my wife had any pecuniary or beneficial interest in that property. There was no disagreement to the executive’s recommendation.”

However, Mr Collins’s statement does not answer a number of the claims made by The Ditch, and is unlikely to draw a line under the matter. The claims made in The Ditch have led to calls for Mr Collins to answer questions in the Dáil this week.

The People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy wrote to the Ceann Comhairle Sean Ó Fearghaíl and the Dáil’s business committee to seek time for questions to Mr Collins this week. The Dáil will agree its Order of Business for the week on Tuesday.

The Ditch has published several stories with allegations about Mr Collins’s role in planning and property issues. Last month he made a statement to the Dáil in which he strongly denied giving misleading information to the local authority in Limerick in relation to a planning application in 2001. He was criticised for the hastily arranged statement and for not taking questions from TDs on that occasion.