Author: Gavin Sheridan

More CAP stats

I’ve taken all 137k (€1.9bn) of CAP payments from 2009 and placed them into a pivot table. (Data thanks to farmsubsidy.org) Here are the stats:

I’ve added in both county population counts and county size by square kilometre. Here is a graphic of county distribution:

Would anyone like to run analyses of per head distribution, or maybe per sq kilometre distribution?

Update: Reader Anne has come back with the requested analysis! Cheers Anne!

Anglo Irish JCF LLP

Last week I blogged about Anglo Irish JCF 1 LLP, a company with an illustrious list of board members. However, following some searches I found something else that looked strange.

According to the Register of Members’ Interests 2006, Senator Feargal Quinn invested in a similarly named company. It was Anglo Irish JCF LLP (without the 1). It is a curious coincidence. So I contacted Mr Quinn about the declared investment asking him the nature of the investment.

Mr Quinn stated:

I’m glad you asked as I didn’t actually invest in it, it was a mistake on my declaration.

I sought further clarification on the nature of the investment and whether Mr Quinn had corrected the record.

I regret that I cannot clarify further for you as I don’t personally deal with my investments and I don’t know the background. In relation to changing the record, your request has drawn my attention to my error and I will now correct it.

Interesting.

Irish CAP payments 2009

I’ve been over in Brussels for the last couple of days meeting the very good people from farmsubsidy.org. Thanks to their scraping efforts I’ve had access to the 2009 database in total, rather than the search mechanism the Department of Agriculture makes available via its website.

So, some figures. There were 137,748 payments under CAP in 2009 to Irish recipients. The average payout was €14,020. The total payout was €1,931,253,085 (€1.93bn). Here are the top 100 recipients:

The top 100 received just over €44m. The top 10 being:

THE IRISH DAIRY BOARD CO-OP
COMMERCIAL MUSHROOM PRS COOP
BAILIE FOODS LTD
GLANBIA INGREDIENTS VIRGINIA
ABBOTT IRL
R & A BAILEY LTD
WYETH NUTRITIONALS IRELAND
ROSDERRA IRISH MEATS GROUP LTD
IRISH AGRICULTURAL DEVELOP
WALTER FURLONG

Other interesting recipients include:

Robert Aylward (Mullinavat, Kilkenny) received €16,765.3
Michael Creed (Macroom, Cork) received €28,866.16
Francis O’Brien (Ballybay, Monaghan) received €80,849.71
Martin and Nicholas Mansergh (Tipperary, Co Tipperary) received €48,545.45
Noel Coonan (Roscrea, Co Tipperary) received €20,331.10
Thomas McEllistrim (Tralee, Co Kerry) received €12,313.74
Michael Moynihan (Mallow, Co Cork) received €15,507.77

And some other interesting ones:

Niall Mellon (Kilkenny) received €42,880.03
Blessington and District Forum Theatre Ltd (Wicklow) received €19,891
Thomas Bailey (Meath) received €8,513.95

One of the strange omissions, for which there may be a perfectly reasonable explanation (I’m not up on my food industry) is that Greencore, the biggest recipient in 2008 at €83,377,557, does not appear in 2009. Is this down to sugar?

Dempsey correspondence

I sought from the Department of Transport:

1) Any and all communications between the Department and the Minister (and vice versa) from January 4, 2010 to January 10, 2010, inclusive. This may take the form of emails or notes of phone calls, or any other form of communication.

I received a series of emails sent from his office (Veronica Scanlan) to the Minister’s personal email address. There is no evidence in the release that Mr Dempsey sent any email to the Department during the course of his holiday in Malta. The fact that he’s using a personal email account is in itself curious, especially in regard to what is, and is not, subject to the Act.



Contrary, I believe, to the Act, redactions have been applied to the documents without any stated exemption being used. Information contained in the released has been blacked out, without even an explanation. The Department also said no logs are kept of phonecalls, so none exist. This may revolve around the use of the word ‘logs’ as oppose to ‘itemised phonebills’ perhaps. I will be following this up at internal review.

So it seems we have this: The Minister’s secretary forwarded some emails, press releases, news articles to the Minister’s personal email address while he was on holidays. That would appear to be extent of the Minister keeping fully briefed on the situation.

Noel Dempsey and Malta

Readers will recall that back in January, when snow ground the country to a halt, our Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey was on holidays in Malta. Speaking later into the week of his holiday, Mr Dempsey claimed he was in constant communication with the Department. I submitted an FOI request for the following, on January 11, 2010.

1) Any and all communications between the Department and the Minister (and vice versa) from January 4, 2010 to January 10, 2010, inclusive. This may take the form of emails or notes of phone calls, or any other form of communication.

2) A log of all non-personal phonecalls made from the mobile phone of the Minister between January 4, 2010 and January 10, 2010, inclusive.

3) A log of all calls made to the mobile phone of the Minister from the Department between January 4, 2010 and January 10, 2010, inclusive.

4) The Minister’s diary between January 1, 2009 and December 31, 2009, inclusive.

5) The FOI requests log for the Department from January 1, 2008 to December 31, 2009, inclusive.

6) The ministerial portfolio given to the Minister upon his becoming Minister for Transport in June 2007.

Let me make one thing clear from here, before I outline the saga of getting this information. If I were a cynic I would speculate that there was political interference with this request. It is not unknown for this to happen with FOI requests.

I submitted the request on January 11. The Department, upon receipt, has 20 working days in which to make a decision and issue the records. This meant I could expect to receive a reply by late February, at the very latest.

On March 4, 2010, I emailed the FOI officer, asking as to the status of the request. I pointed out that the 20 day limit had passed, and that technically the request was now a deemed refusal, and I was now entitled to an internal review, though I did not invoke Section 42 (internal reviews can take 3 weeks). I received an out of office reply, and that the FOI officer would return on March 5. I waited.

On March 8, 2010, I again emailed the FOI officer, CCing another person in the Department. I again sought information on the status of the request. I received a reply that it was being checked. I received no further reply.

On March 16, 2010, I again emailed the FOI officer, seeking the status of my request. I received a reply that the Deciding Officer who was supposed to handle my request, was on leave. It was stated that the Department regretted the inconvenience. I received no further communication.

On March 24, 2010, I again emailed the FOI officer and the Deciding Officer, seeking the status of my request. I received no reply. Later that week I called the FOI officer, and sought again to have my request actioned. I was again promised that it would be issued. I waited.

On April 19, 2010, I emailed the FOI officer. 14 weeks had passed since my request was submitted. I informed the Department that if I did not receive a reply by the end of the week, I would be seeking an internal review under Section 42, due to deemed refusal. I received a reply, committing the Department to release by the end of the week, along with an apology for the delay.

I waited until the following Monday April 26, and had still not received a reply or the records in question. I therefore sought an internal review due to deemed refusal. I then received an email saying the documents had been posted.

By Wednesday April 28, I had not received documents by post, and therefore sought them electronically. I received them late in the day on April 28. However there are a number of issues with the issued documents, and the time elapsed, and I have now sought an internal review under Section 42.

15 weeks and 4 days from submission to release. That’s almost a full quarter of a year. The Department offered no explanation as to why it took so long to release. I will publish the documents I received shortly.