The ¤ 750,000, the promises and the row

IT’S really not that easy to l ose ¤ 750,000. It ’s even harder to admit i t. That i s, unless you never had i t i n the f i rst place. Chief Executive Ciarán Hayes has been dropping an alleged promised money pot of ¤750,000 into the conversation every chance he gets lately, and it’s getting on some councillors nerves.

Councillor Declan Bree started digging down the back of the couch at the December Council meeting and he wanted answers.

Might the Chief Executive provide councillors with the time, date and venue of each meeting in 2015, 2016 and 2017 where Assistant Secretary of the Department of Local Government Paul Lemass promised to give Sligo County Council this ¤750,000 former Minister Alan Kelly took off them in 2014?

September 7 th 2016, around 3 o’clock, came the terse reply. Lemass said it in front of two other senior civil servants.

Ah, now we were getting somewhere. We had three witnesses. If true, and “we must accept what the Chief Executive told us”, it was a “very serious matter” said Declan.

If the Assistant Secretary General gave misleading information then the Minister would have to take action.

Thomas Healy, one of the councillors who met with Paul Lemass in June 2015, proposed the same crew meet with him again.

It’s not as easy as that, sadly. Officials from the Department of Local Government haven’t enough cold shoulder to show Ciarán and his crew these days.

We wrote to Paul Lemass asking for that and he declined, said Hayes sadly.

The Minister? pressed Thomas. Alas, this too had been declined already.

This is a long and sorry saga, declared Hubert Keaney rising to his feet. If Sligo County Council had been compensated by Irish Water for the millions they pumped into upgrading waste water treatment plants in the first place they’d never be in the merde they were in now, he opined.

No other local authority got caught like we did. Sent our budgets over a cliff edge. It was a perfect storm.

But back to that missing ¤750,000. Paul Lemass told Hubert that the money wasn’t his to give. That was, like, waaaay above his pay grade. That would be a Ministerial gift.

But if they stuck to their Financial Plan, (which wasn’t signed until December 2015 remember) and were good boys and girls, Lemass would have no problem “making a recommendation to the Minister that we’d get the ¤750,000 back.”

After the 2016 General Election, Hubert continued, he met with Lemass and other civil servants.

However “robust” their meeting was, Hubert couldn’t wrangle any money out of them.

He even met the then Local Government Minister himself, Simon Coveney in December 2016 and there was still no commitment to give back the ¤750,000.

In fact, Hubert declared proudly, in three years of meeting minsters and officials, they hadn’t succeeded in getting anybody to promise to hand back ¤750,000 to Sligo County Council.

If Hubert couldn’t get the promise of three quarters of a million, how could Ciarán have?

This was all going nowhere - Declan announced he was going to have Clare Daly bring the matter up in the Dáil.

Nobody was going to dangle three quarters of a million in front of them and jerk it away again.

It was the best idea Hayes had heard all day.

Bring it up in the Dáil, tell the world and his wife. He got a promise from Lemass that he’d “find a way to shovel money back in”, not once, but twice!

But it wasn’t just Hayes who was promised the money. Ramming home his point, he said he was told by another councillor who also “intimated” to him that the commitment was given.

Hubert smelled a rat. When was this? he probed.

Back in 2015, Hayes thought. Who was this mysterious councillor who might back up his story?

“That’s a matter for the councillor” said Hayes. suddenly coy.

Hubert didn’t like the innuendo one bit. He wanted to be quite clear, in case we already weren’t, that at the meeting between councillors and Paul Lemass on 12 th June 2015, “no commitment was given.”

“That true,” chirped Declan Bree. If they had been promised ¤750,000 they’d have ran to the local press about it, crowing from the rooftops. Be told they were getting ¤750,000 and not crow about it? What kind of councillors did Hayes think they were?

Raising his gaze to Hubert, Hayes didn’t want to go there, he said, going right there, “but I remember telling you about the commitment and you saying to me that you heard the same thing, you were given a commitment.”

The air was sucked out of the room. “I want you to withdraw that,” said Hubert, aghast.

“Do you think for one minute...” he spluttered. “That is outrageous. It’s a bit stupid to make that suggestion. I don’t make accusations about people in public,” he said through clenched teeth.

The media were here (we were) and covering it well but it was “complicated” (it is), said Hubert before storming out of the chamber muttering things about his good name.

He was joined in a meeting room by Cathaoirleach Seamus Kilgannon, Declan Bree, Martin Baker and Michael Clarke. Loud voices could be heard.

Peace broke out after Hayes told everyone he believed Hubert hadn’t been given a commitment. But he still stood over what he was told by Lemass about the money. The battle for the ¤750,000 is not over yet. Watch this space in 2018.