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SIPO has launched a formal inquiry into The Ditch reports that Fianna Fáil junior minister Niall Collins voted to sell local authority land that was bought by his wife.
The move to launch an inquiry is rare – last year only around two percent of all complaints to SIPO proceeded to the inquiry stage.
Former Fianna Fáil activist Kris Shekleton submitted a complaint to the ethics watchdog against Collins in 2023 alleging that the ex-councillor breached local government legislation.
The commission told Shekleton by letter yesterday that it has appointed an inquiry officer to carry out a preliminary inquiry to “decide whether there is prima facie evidence to sustain the complaint”.
Though Collins’s wife ultimately bought the land, her planning consultant said in an email in 2021 that Collins is actually the owner.
Feel free to give him a call
In December 2006 a solicitor for Niall Collins’s wife Eimear O’Connor wrote to Limerick County Council asking if it was willing to sell a site on Main Street, Patrickswell to O’Connor.
Collins’s wife, wrote the solicitor “is a general practitioner operating in the area and wishes to provide a centre within the environs of Patrickswell Village”.
The next month at a council meeting attended by Niall Collins, a council housing engineer “stated that a number of enquiries were received to purchase a parcel of land”, according to meeting minutes.
However according to documents released to The Ditch under the freedom of information act, O’Connor’s was the only enquiry about the land.
Collins’s fellow Fianna Fáil councillor Leonard Enright proposed a motion to sell the land. All seven councillors present, Collins included, voted in favour of the motion.
Under section 177 of the Local Government Act 2001, when councillors have “actual knowledge that… a connected person (spouse) has a pecuniary or other beneficial interest in, or which is material to, the matter", they are prohibited from voting and must declare the conflict of interest to the local authority.
The sale to O’Connor was approved in August 2008 for €148,000. She didn’t take out a mortgage to buy the land, according to Land Registry records.
In February 2020, along with business partner Noel Daly, O’Connor got planning permission for the construction of five homes on the site. Fergal Cusack of building and planning consultancy Cusack and Associates submitted the successful application.
The next year – during negotiations with Limerick City and County Council to sell social housing units to be constructed on the site – Cusack sent an email saying Niall Collins is in fact the owner of the site.
“Niall Collins TD is the owner and he is happy to meet with you… to discuss. Feel free to give him a call,” wrote Cusack, before sharing Collins’s mobile number.
When contacted by The Ditch in 2024 about this email Collins denied both his ownership of the site and that he knows Cusack. “Well the planner’s wrong… I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said Collins at the time, adding, “I’m not the owner of the site at Patrickswell. It’s as simple as that.”
The Ditch previously reported that Collins lied to conceal his home ownership in a successful planning application for a second home.
Both revelations led to taoiseach Micheál Martin using Dáil privilege to launch an attack against The Ditch which was criticised by the National Union of Journalists.
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