Damien English hopes voters can ‘look beyond’ planning application controversy

Damein English, who resigned from his role as a minister of State after it was revealed he gave incorrect information to a local authority when making a planning application, has said he hopes to be re-elected and that voters can “look beyond” the episode.

Speaking publicly for the first time since the controversy arose in January, the Fine Gael TD for Meath West said he was “extremely disappointed” with himself and “embarrassed that standards I set for myself were not met and that is why I resigned”.

However, he said during an interview with RTÉ radio’s Claire Byrne that he hopes to run in the next general election.

“Naturally the people of Meath West will have to make a decision on that. I’ll certainly, like anybody else, be putting myself forward. I hope that people can look beyond this,” he said on Wednesday.

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Did not declare ownership

Mr English resigned following a report on the Ditch website outlining how he did not declare his ownership of a house at Castlemartin, Co Meath when he made a planning application in 2008 to built a new one-off rural home nearby.

The website also suggested Mr English should have declared the property in his returns to the Dáil’s Register of Members’ Interests for more than a decade, but he has insisted he did not have to do this as the property was for “family use”.

The Sunday Independent reported at the weekend that the Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) has decided that it will not investigate Mr English after concluding he had complied with the Ethics in Public Office Act in his annual declarations.

Sipo reportedly decided that the complaint made against him by People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy was “not of sufficient gravity to warrant investigation”.

The Dáil Committee on Members’ Interests decided not to carry out a formal investigation into a complaint by the Labour Party, which believed Mr English may have breached the Standards in Public Office Act, 2001 by “providing false information on a planning application”.

Private activity

In a letter to the Labour Party, committee chairman Michael Creed said the committee was of the view that “the act of applying for planning permission for a private home in the circumstances constituted purely private activity which is expressly excluded from the definition of ‘specified act’” under ethics laws.

Mr English said he is “satisfied” with the decisions of both bodies but “it doesn’t change what I did and it doesn’t change my announcement in January and why I resigned...”.

“The wrong information was on that planning file. It should not have been there. It should not have happened,” he said.

Put to him that the incorrect information gave him an advantage in his application, and that if he had been fully truthful he would not have received permission to build, Mr English replied: “No one knows that for definite. I’m not going into that.”

He said he took full responsibility and he thought it was “appropriate to put my hand up and say ‘yes, this happened’.”

Family home

Mr English declined to clarify what he means by saying the Castlemartin property is in family use and said he has not rented it out.

“It’s private family home and it’s not for me to discuss my family business, to be honest with you, in relation to that house. Sipo have done their own investigation on that and come to their own decision on that.”

Put to him that it might mend bridges if he were to release the house onto the market, he replied: “With the greatest of respect it’s a family situation. It’s a family house for a long number of years and I’m leaving it at that.”

Asked if he wanted his ministerial job back, Mr English said “at this stage I’d be very happy to be re-elected as a TD”.

“I believe that I’ve done a reasonable job as a minister...Of course anybody in politics... should want to be in a position where they can influence as much as they possibly can.”