Author: Ken Foxe

A social distance index (SDI) that would have measured people’s adherence to public health guidelines on a rolling fifteen-minute basis was one of the plans considered by government as part of plans to tackle Covid-19.

The so-called SDI index would have captured mobile phone data by counting phones in tiles of 25 metres every fifteen minutes to monitor adherence to social distancing, “crowd hotspots”, and travel.

It was one of a several ideas floated during discussions between the Department of the Taoiseach and consultancy EY in the autumn and winter of 2020, according to records released under FOI.

The proposal came with a warning that “clearly, care [was] required to balance with citizen rights” but that a successful “proof of value” trial of the technology had already taken place in London.

However, the plan was not followed through with the Department of the Taoiseach saying the records had been part of a “springboard for a frank discussion” on what was known as the 1 Government Centre Project (1GC) to deal with the pandemic.

The Department had originally refused to release most of the records but changed their position after the case was appealed to the Information Commissioner.

Exploratory work took place on the Social Distance Index in both Cork and Dublin, according to presentations that were released. However, there were “specific quality issues” with the data available for Dublin.

The records also discuss the setting up of a Covid-19 nerve centre called “Room 350” to monitor disease spread and compliance with restrictions.

Three daily briefings would be delivered there with deep dive reports once a week. An alert system was also discussed saying: “WhatsApp Updated in the event of agreed specific criteria being breached.

“Criteria focusing on case numbers accelerating or hospital approaching capacity.”

The records also cast new light on how Covid-19 was spreading in the run-up to Christmas 2020, when infections soared out of control leading to a wave of illness and death in early 2021.

A former Fianna Fáil TD said he had to spend €440 in taxpayers’ money to post a copy of a research report to other politicians after being told he could not circulate it through Leinster House’s internal post.

Deputy Marc MacSharry also claimed at least one of the letters sent had later been opened by Oireachtas staff and that Ireland was “deteriorating into a Marxist Republic” in an email to the Ceann Comhairle.

The saga began last July when Mr MacSharry was trying to distribute a copy of a report he and his staff had authored on the impact of Covid-19 on mental health.

He said the work had taken six months to complete and that he had hoped to have a copy of it sent to every member of the Oireachtas.

However, after bringing the reports to Leinster House, he was told that such material could not be freely distributed without the permission of individual party whips.

In his letter to the Ceann Comhairle, he said: “I thought how ridiculous is that? Naturally, I would expect a code of conduct to prevent unscrupulous members seeking to raise money or sell tickets by way of the internal mailing system.

“But when it’s important research I thought in the interest of basic common sense, and the reality that those elected here have an actual mandate that maybe we might be allowed share research on mental health. Clearly not!”

He said it would have taken far too long to contact all the individual whips including representatives for “god knows how many other pop-up de facto parties”.

Mr MacSharry then detailed how he had gone to his office and affixed prepaid postage stamps from Leinster House stationary onto his “plain A4 envelopes”.

He said this had probably cost the taxpayer around €440 in postage, not to mention the costs involved in having the letters brought to a mailing centre … only to be immediately returned to Leinster House.

Mr MacSharry then said not to be “outdone by yesterday’s stupidity”, he discovered a green crate full of his letters at the enquiries reception of the building the following day.

He said they had not been distributed and wrote that he could see “one of them at least had been opened”.

When he asked an usher about this, Mr MacSharry said he was told: “No we have not opened any of them YET [his emphasis] Deputy, we have to wait for the head usher.”

Mr MacSharry said he had been nineteen years in the Oireachtas and had witnessed first-hand the “deterioration of the standing and treatment of members”.

He wrote: “The fact that our post is now being pre-read and subject to an approval process … to determine whether it can be delivered is a serious cause for concern to me.

“Sadly, I have believed for some time that as a nation we are well on our way to deteriorating into a Marxist Republic and now when one considers that members’ correspondence to other members must be subject [to] an approval process by Houses of the Oireachtas staff without my knowledge not to mention the wider nonsense described above is truly alarming.”

You can read the correspondence between Mr MacSharry and the Ceann Comhairle Seán Ó Fearghaíl below.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe was hit with a wave of complaints over proposals to tax loans from the so-called Bank of Mum and Dad.

The Department of Finance had said before the budget it planned to tackle inter-family loans by linking them to the best interest rate somebody could have secured from a financial institution.

However, the change was withdrawn at the eleventh hour with Minister Donohoe saying it had the potential to “create inconsistencies”.

Records from the Department of Finance detail a flurry of correspondence to the minister from members of the public and government colleagues late last year.

A county council was forced to pay back over €1.2 million in government funding after an internal audit found miscoded invoices and money drawn down before any work had taken place.

Mayo County Council had been awarded significant funding for tourism and amenity projects in the county as part of a fund to support outdoor recreation by the Department of Rural and Community Development.

However, a departmental audit of the scheme found major issues across five separate grants to the local authority resulting in the repayment of more than €1.2 million.

A copy of the report details how auditors first examined a €200,000 grant for development of a 45-metre suspended cycle bridge as part of the Achill Island Greenway.

It found that €27,000 in invoices had been “miscoded” from other projects. Another €32,000 had been spent on the scheme on underground ducting and professional fees.

However, the local authority had drawn down the full grant even though a tender for the bridge had come in three times over the budget estimate.

The report said: “The local authority has, during the audit, admitted to drawing down the grant without incurring the requisite expenditure and has informally requested additional grant funding.”

As a result of the findings, the auditors decided they would look at other grants that had been paid by Mayo County Council through the scheme.

A Leinster House briefing paper flagged the risk politicians might “stockpile” antigen tests if they were made available for free to TDs and Senators.

It also warned that members of the Oireachtas were among the most vulnerable to Covid infection because of their high “number of interactions” with other people and challenges with social distancing.

A discussion paper said that antigen tests could be made available for free to TDs and Senators but that it could lead to an “excessive, and more importantly, unnecessary use of the tests”.

The paper also warned of the risks of making tests – which were expected to cost €2.60 (exclusive of VAT each – available without charging.

It said: “While unlikely, there is also the potential that providing test kits on request could lead to ‘stockpiling’ from members of the parliamentary community taking advantage of the availability of free kits.”

The discussion paper makes clear that discussion had included the possibility of providing the tests for free to politicians.

It said: “The Service can currently obtain test kits – the best quote obtained so far is €2.60 + VAT per kit. It is proposed that this cost will be met by the Commission.”

Two Fianna Fáil ministers signed off on a €190,000 annual salary with company car for the chief executive of Horse Racing Ireland even though the starting salary set for the role had been just €137,356.

Public Expenditure Minister Michael McGrath and Agriculture Minister Charlie McConalogue both agreed to the package after HRI warned recruitment would be “extremely difficult” based on lower rates.

HRI ended up appointing Suzanne Eade – who had been serving as their chief financial officer – to the role and she formally took up the post late last year.

Discussions over the salary began last June with the Department of Agriculture sending a copy of a draft contract for Ms Eade to officials in the Department of Public Expenditure the following month.

It said a salary of €190,773 per annum would be awarded but that this would be phased in over a three-year period.

In the first year, the new chief executive would be paid €174,773, in year two a rate of €182,773, and for years three to seven, the higher amount would apply.

The contract also said a car allowance of €13,150 along with reasonable mileage would be paid to their new chief executive.

In an email, the Department of Public Expenditure told a senior official in the Department of Agriculture that revised rates of pay for such roles had been agreed by government in 2011.

A message from Kieran Dollard of their Senior Pay Policy unit said: “In relation to Horse Racing Ireland, the range was determined as €137,356 to €164,231, the lower point of the range intended as the starting salary for new appointees.”

It said the fact that the then chief executive Brian Kavanagh was on a higher salary was because he was “already in situ” prior to the government decision.

They asked for a “robust and detailed” business case to be provided to justify why the rate that was agreed in 2011 should not apply to the post.

A copy of that business case said HRI had carried out their own independent review which found chief executives in similar roles were paid between €172,000 and €232,000.

The Oireachtas paid out almost €45,000 for flights, hotels, and expenses, as politicians dipped their toes back into the world of international travel after a lengthy pandemic hiatus.

Almost all the €44,463 bill was run up between September and November of last year with TDs and Senators jetting off to the USA, the UAE, and even Uzbekistan.

Databases released by the Oireachtas reveal that one of the costliest trips was a visit made by Seanad Cathaoirleach Mark Daly to the USA in the autumn.

Costs on that official visit – which the FOI records list as having run from 24 October to 7 November – included €819 for a flight and €1,614 in hotel costs.

During the visit, Fianna Fáil Senator Daly gave the opening address at an event for Irish American legislators in Florida, after several days in Washington DC.

Two politicians – Fine Gael’s Charlie Flanagan and Fianna Fáil’s Brian Cowen – travelled to the United Arab Emirates in late November with flights for each of them costing €699.

Hotel costs for Mr Cowen were listed as €567 while a third member of the proposed delegation from the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Defence, Social Democrat TD Gary Gannon did not travel.

The Oireachtas said €457 of Mr Gannon’s €699 flight cost had been refunded already and that they were awaiting a further €142.

Former minister Michael Creed travelled to Uzbekistan in October as part of his work with the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE).

According to the records, flights for that trip cost €1,311 with a further €663 spent on hotel accommodation for the Fine Gael TD.

The largest chunk of the €44,463 total bill was run up on Council of Europe business with fifteen separate trips to locations including Strasbourg, Moscow, Athens, and Rome costing €18,487.

A fake Irish Covid-19 poster spread rapidly around the world as far afield as New Zealand and South Africa while also appearing on bus shelters and in toilets around Dublin.

The Health Products Regulatory Authority (HPRA) had been in receipt of queries from international media and members of the public from around the world asking about the poster, which falsely claimed there was a risk of “sudden death” from taking a Covid-19 vaccine.

Internal emails detail how the HPRA said it was “almost impossible to prevent this type of thing” and that it had been flagged with Twitter and Facebook, where it was circulating widely.

The full set of records from the HPRA below:

The IDA flagged concerns that data centres were being “scapegoated” for a crisis in electricity supply that had led to warnings of power blackouts.

An internal briefing note based on international investor feedback said data centres were being portrayed as the “culprit for current electricity problems” when supply issues were “clearly” the cause of the problem.

In other internal records, the IDA explained how an electricity supply crunch had been expected in Ireland, but not until around 2026, and that supply issues were already “impacting on investment decisions”.

The full set of records below:

The Defence Forces lost or wrote off as damaged beyond repair more than €46,000 worth of equipment over the space of two years.

Among the items that went missing in action or were damaged so badly they could no longer be used were body armour, a night vision device, GPS devices, and even badminton racquets.

The Defence Forces had originally released only a partial list of the items with close to half of the entries redacted on security grounds.

They had claimed release of details relating to some lost or damaged items “could be used by criminal elements, paramilitaries, or other state and non-state actors to counter a specific operational capability the Defences Forces uses at home and/or overseas”.

In an internal review decision, they said there was a risk of “serious harm, or indeed loss of life” and that the chance of this happening – while unlikely – could “potentially be catastrophic” to the Defence Forces, its personnel, and even the state. That decision was subsequently appealed to the Information Commissioner, at which point the Defence Forces opted to release the list in full.