Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In recent times, senior civil and public servants have been mired in controversy. The public purse is being used by those at the most senior level to enhance their own salaries and, in other cases, to advance policy initiatives the Government has not underwritten. We have seen these questionable practices in the appointment of the Secretary General of the Department of Health on an unjustifiable salary and the actions of the Office of the Planning Regulator in the application of policy other than that of the line Minister. There are many other examples.

In early January of this year, following a complaint in 2019, the Standards in Public Office Commission, SIPO, issued one of the most damning reports in its history. It exposed most inappropriate behaviour by Wexford County Council's chief executive, Tom Enright, and the then cathaoirleach, Fianna Fáil councillor Michael Sheehan. Mr. Enright was found to have used the weight of the public purse in an attempt to influence the editorial output of South East Radio, something you might see in Mother Russia. Within two days of the issuing of the report, the Fianna Fáil chair of Wexford County Council, Councillor Barbara-Anne Murphy, called a meeting to immediately push through a vote supporting the chief executive, ignoring the findings of the SIPO report, her own legal advice and established custom and practice for dealing with serious disciplinary matters concerning a chief executive. It was an action for which she herself should be sanctioned. The vote was controlled and rammed through by councillors of the two main parties, namely, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the parties in government. They made a laughing stock of SIPO effectively by giving it the two fingers. SIPO's 376-page report had taken two years to compile. Other senior officials, including the county secretary and directors of services, made contact with councillors to impress upon them the importance of supporting the chief executive in a vote. Implicit in that contact was that the potholes and footpaths in councillors' areas would not be attended to if they did not support their man. This action should be investigated in its own right and for which those concerned should be sanctioned. As one junior official in Wexford County Council put it to me, these votes will cost the council money.

Do the Taoiseach and his party recognise the importance of SIPO and its findings as a mechanism for maintaining public confidence in the civil and public service? I believe the Taoiseach does. He mentioned corruption earlier. In that circumstance, what sanctions does he propose for councillors Sheehan and Murphy for aiding and abetting the chief executive in this debacle?

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