ALLEGATIONS OF SERIOUS IRREGULARITIES INVOLVING PUBLIC BODIES IN WEXFORD
Allegations of serious irregularities involving public bodies and taxpayers’ money in a Wexford Office development have been made in the Dail.
Socialist Party TD Joe Higgins has called on the Minister for the Environment to establish a commission of investigation into the matter.
The case involves the assembling of a site that now houses offices of the Department of Social Protection and the Revenue Commissioners on Anne Street in Wexford.
Joe Higgins told the Dail the involvement of public bodies in “serious unanswered questions and anomalies surrounding the assembling of this site” had to be answered.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was in the chamber when Mr Higgins raised the issue with Minister of State Ann Phelan.
Ms Phelan said the Minister for the Environment “has no direct responsibility for or involvement in the assembly of land by local authorities for the purpose of the provision of offices for Government departments or other sites of the State”.
She said that if there were issues with the manner in which the sites were assembled, they should be first raised with the borough council’s successor, Wexford County Council.
Mr Higgins said documents he had seen were “prima facie evidence of very serious irregularities”.
He said he had not received any satisfactory answers from Wexford County Council or the Revenue Commissioners after significant correspondence.
The OPW acquired the two sites from Wexford Borough Council in the 1990s under a compulsory purchase order.
