Mr. Tom Moylan:

Not that I am aware of. We held a number of meetings with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government as part of the ongoing training programme we give to elected members, and we gave a module on governance and ethics in early 2015. This was part one and we were due to do part two later in 2015 and in 2016. We spoke to officials in the Department who oversee our training and they said we should wait until further ethics legislation was concluded, as a draft Bill was running through the Houses of the Oireachtas at that time, before we carried out any further training.

The seriousness of the Bill was first brought to our attention around April of this year and I received emails from one or two delegates, as well as from Members of the Oireachtas who wanted to bring it to the attention of elected members that the proposals in the Bill would have serious implications for them. I prepared a briefing document in April on the proposed Bill and brought it to our executive committee at our April-May meeting and it was published on our website. On 11 May, we got an email from the government reform unit in the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, with a letter from the Minister attached, explaining the Bill and bringing its contents to our notice.

I will quote from the end of it. It stated: "Furthermore, officials of my Department are available to discuss any issues which might arise." According to the letter, regular meetings were held between officials in the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and representatives of the Association of Irish Local Government. It also notes that the Bill was published in December 2015 and completed Second Stage in the Dáil on 20 January 2016. I refute the statement that we had detailed discussions with the Department.