Taoiseach and Martin round on the ODCE

ENDA Kenny has hit back at a complaint by the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement that it didn’t have enough resources to properly investigate Seán FitzPatrick.

The Taoiseach yesterday said any request for extra resources had been granted by his Government.

‘I can confirm that when the Minister for Education, Deputy [Richard] Bruton, had responsibility for jobs, requests by the ODCE to his then department for resources were granted. Now I find that the ODCE says it was simply not equipped to take parallel investigations on the scale involved,’ he told the Dáil. Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor released a statement stating that the ODCE had received additional staff in the last year, as well as additional forensic accountants.

Micheál Martin told the Dáil the collapse of the criminal proceedings was a ‘damning indictment’ of the ODCE.

The Fianna Fáil leader said the case had been ‘by any measure, a catastrophic systemic failure’ – adding: ‘The reputation of the ODCE is in shreds.’ The Taoiseach said he agreed with Mr Martin, remarking: ‘A minister in charge of something like this would face instant dismissal.’

In a further statement released yesterday evening, the ODCE said it would deal with Ms Mitchell O’Connor’s request for a report into the FitzPatrick investigation as a ‘matter of the highest priority’ – but added that it was excluded from large portions of the trial on the judge’s orders. The ODCE has asked the DPP to hand over transcripts of the trial.