Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)
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80. To ask the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the engagements his Department has had with a person (details supplied) in relation to accusations against them and their dismissal from an industry body; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [45014/21]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Mr. Mulcahy and his representatives have communicated with my Department for more than twenty years and I have written to Mr Mulcahy about these matters on 16 March 2021.

I reviewed the matters associated with my Department regarding Mr Mulcahy’s correspondence over a prolonged period. Mr Mulcahy had the Department’s handling of these matters considered by the Office of the Ombudsman and by the Information Commissioner and neither body found the Department at fault in any aspect. Mr Mulcahy also raised matters with both the European Commission and the EU Ombudsman, neither of whom criticised the Department’s engagement on these matters.

In all these circumstances my department has maintained that it has been fully open and transparent with Mr Mulcahy on issues, which ultimately relate back to a decision by the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association to conclude his employment in 1998 - a decision in which the Department played no part.

The Department has over many years devoted a considerable amount of time and resources to this issue. It has afforded every facility and courtesy to Mr Mulcahy in these matters and is strongly of the view that it has acted with probity with no adverse findings from consideration of these matters by the Ombudsman and the Information Commissioner.

Given the passage of time and the efforts made by the Department, I advised Mr Mulcahy that it is no longer tenable we continue to engage with him in any further correspondence. This message was conveyed to Mr Mulcahy by my predecessor Mary Mitchell O’Connor and the Secretary General of my Department in 2016 and 2017. I have informed Mr Mulcahy that this matter is closed in my correspondence to him.

I fully appreciate and respect Mr Mulcahy’s desire to vindicate his good name. However, it is my view that this would be best done through engagement with his former employer, ISME.