Some background:
Earlier this year the Irish Examiner led with a story concerning corporate donations to Fianna Fail. Figures which were previously undisclosed were revealed. This was done through Company Registration Office files, whereby companies are obliged under the Companies Acts to declare donations on their annual accounts.
Following this story, Anthony over at PublicInquiry.eu made a complaint to SIPOC (they are not a pro-active body and will only act where a complain is made). The complaint took months to process and about four weeks ago SIPOC found that no breach had taken place, but gave no further detail. He was advised to FOI the results of the investigation.
These were released late last week and I have uploaded them.
The FOI contains the exchange of letters between Fianna Fail and SIPOC concerning the donations in question and the process through which SIPOC decided that there was no case to answer. However, there are a number of odd elements to the story, particularly the anonymised list of donations from Durkan to party members.
The exchange of letters is worth a look.
[Disclosure: I am a personal friend of the author of the Irish Examiner story]
Trojan work, much appreciated but I can’t help noticing that SIPOC refuse to give details of their own actions. Orwell couldn’t have written it better.
Interesting read. Thanks for putting this up.