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The Department of Housing’s recently appointed housing tsar met with a lobbyist from the Collison brothers-backed Progress Ireland but didn’t keep any records of the engagement.
The department’s deputy secretary general Garret Doocey – appointed to the housing role after controversy caused Brendan McDonagh to withdraw from consideration – met with Progress Ireland’s Seán O’Neill McPartlin earlier this year.
Despite SIPO advising that public officials like Doocey “ensure that a proper record is maintained of all correspondence with a lobbyist on a particular matter’, including records “of casual or social encounters”, the department didn’t keep any notes of the meeting.
‘It is standard practice for many civil servants to take notes of meetings’
Last week The Ditch reported that Progress Ireland tried to keep a meeting with infrastructure minister Jack Chambers off the lobbying register – despite being legally obliged to log it. The group updated its returns when contacted for comment.
Progress Ireland lobbyist Seán O’Neill McPartlin did register a separate meeting with deputy secretary general at the Department of Housing Garret Doocey that took place between May and August of this year in Dublin.
This time the department didn’t keep records of what was discussed or how the meeting was arranged.
A civil servant in the department declined to release any records of the encounter to The Ditch, saying, no records were found to exist.
Doocey “confirmed that the meeting in question consisted of an informal meeting with a representative of Progress Ireland during which there was a general discussion regarding Progress Ireland’s research on land readjustment. No briefing material, meeting notes, minutes, correspondence, submissions, presentations or other records were created or retained in relation to this engagement,” said the civil servant.
According to research conducted by Transparency International Ireland, “While it is standard practice for many civil servants to take notes of meetings, there is no statutory obligation for them to create these records.”
McPartlin gave a brief description of the conversation between himself and Doocey in the lobbying return he filed, saying the pair had a “discussion of Progress Ireland’s research on land readjustment”. He told The Ditch, “The meeting happened as described in my lobbying return.”
Land readjustment is a Progress Ireland proposal for joining plots of land to form a large parcel for large developments.
Progress Ireland continues to lobby multiple government departments on behalf of the billionaire Collison brothers.
The group – having gained access to government advisers within hours of contacting them – has successfully lobbied for deregulation of the housing market so “shedshits” could be rented by homeowners without having to apply for planning permission.
The Department of Housing has been contacted for comment.
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