Paschal Donohoe to take back ministerial powers shelved over Sipo election expenses issue

Minister for Public Expenditure Paschal Donohoe will take back ministerial powers that he previously recused himself from, after controversy around undeclared election expenses.

In January, Mr Donohoe recused himself from some of his ministerial duties around Sipo after it emerged that he did not declare all services paid for during his 2016 general election campaign.

In May, The Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) told Mr Donohoe that it was closing a complaint against him over the election returns.

Mr Donohoe failed to declare that businessman Michael Stone had paid thousands of euros towards the display of his campaign posters in his constituency in his last two general election campaigns in 2016 and 2020.

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The Minister was forced to apologise in January, gave two Dáil statements, and amend his election returns.

Meanwhile, the number of International Protection applicants arriving into Ireland from safe countries has fallen by 70 per cent, Minister for Justice Helen McEntee will tell Cabinet.

The Government last year introduced an accelerated immigration process for people arriving into the State from such countries seeking international protection.

Under the changes, a first-instance decision was to be made within three months, down from a norm of between 17 to 24 months last year.

The safe countries include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and South Africa.

Ms McEntee is expected to tell Cabinet that since last November, the numbers arriving from these countries have reduced from 210 applications to 64 in May this year — a drop of almost 70 per cent.

In light of the significant increase in the number of international protection applicants in 2022, Ministers will also agree to increase the output of the international protection office.

A new target of 1,000 first-instance decisions being issued per month by spring 2024 will be adopted, up from the current level of 750 and the 2021 level of 200 decisions per month.

There is also a plan to increase the number of staff in the office to 430 by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Ireland will join a raft of other EU countries in supporting a precautionary pause on deep-sea mining.

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Tánaiste Micheál Martin and Minister for Housing Darragh O’Brien will seek approval for the pause amid concerns about commercial exploitation.

Under the 1982 UN Convention on the Law of the Sea, the mineral resources of the deep seabed beyond national jurisdictions are vested in mankind as a whole.

The convention established the International Seabed Authority to regulate exploration and exploitation of mineral resources on the international seabed.

Mr Martin will tell Cabinet that there are efforts by some States and the mining industry to begin exploiting these resources, despite the fact negotiations on a mining code, including environmental regulations, are expected to take a number of years to complete.

He will tell the meeting that there is a need to better understand the effects of deep-sea mining on the marine environment and biodiversity.

Deep-sea mining operations are those that typically occur below depths of 200m. Demand has seen deep-sea deposits of metal ores being considered for commercial exploitation. These include cobalt, manganese, nickel, gold, silver, copper and zinc.

No mineral exploration or mining activity is envisaged on the Irish seabed, neither is any Irish company engaged in seabed mining activity.

To date, those calling for some form of precautionary pause on seabed mining include Belgium, Chile, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, New Zealand, Portugal, and Spain.

The Programme for Government commits to expanding Ireland’s network of Marine Protected Areas to 10 per cent of its maritime area as soon as is practical, and 30 per cent coverage by 2030.

Meanwhile, Mr O’Brien will also tell Cabinet that planning law changes which were introduced to increase home ownership and restrict the practice of bulk purchasing by institutional investors have led to almost 31,000 units being ring-fenced for individual buyers.