Category: FOIs

Enda Kenny overruled two Ministers to give €35,000 pay rise

Taoiseach Enda Kenny personally intervened to have a special adviser awarded a salary of €127,000, 37 per cent more than had been recommended.

These are some of the Department of Enterprise communications, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, which outline the chain of events leading to the decision.

After the general election, Ciaran Conlon was appointed as an adviser to Enterprise Minister Richard Bruton. Under new guidelines set out by the Department of Finance, a salary cap had been put in place for such positions, ranging from around €80,000 to €92,000 per year. It appears from the emails however, that Mr Conlon had already been promised an annual wage of €127,000.

A difficulty arose when both Minister for Public Expenditure Reform Brendan Howlin and Finance Minister Michael Noonan refused to grant this higher salary. A memo in the Department of Enterprise explained that they were willing to pay him at the higher end of the scale, approving a pay level of €92,000.

Ciaran Conlon, a former communications chief with Fine Gael, was not happy with this, writing in an email: ‘This is getting ridiculous. The minister sent over a memo on this issue weeks ago. This has been passed at the very highest level in Government Buildings.’

Enda Kenny then intervened with his private secretary writing to the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform and expressing the Taoiseach’s wish for a salary of €127,000. The Department caved in and a new contract for Mr Conlon was drawn up.

The story I wrote in this week’s Mail on Sunday outlines what happened in more detail:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2069731/How-Irish-PM-ordered-officials-break-salary-cap-old-friend-PR-adviser.html

Here are the documents:


HSE southeast assets registry 2010

This is the assets register for HSE southeast for 2010. I will be gradually publishing all assets registries for the HSE over the coming weeks. HSE South is the only exception, as they have been unable to export the data to a spreadsheet.

The data includes the building assets, land assets, vehicles assets, equipment, computer equipment, computer software of HSE Southeast.

Downloadable spreadsheet

HSE chief executive appointments diary 2010/2011

As part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of the HSE’s chief executive from January 2010 to August 2011. Cathal Magee became chief executive in September 2010, with Brendan Drumm before him.


Department of Environment fixed assets registry

In case you ever wondered, this is the fixed assets registry of the Department of the Environment. The total original cost of the assets was €71,974,935.65, which has been depreciated by €12,649,299.34 to €38,496,075.13.

The registry details all the fixed assets, including tables, chairs, computers, bogs, vehicles (not sure why they are there) and how much was paid per item.

Of note was the €29,766.00 and €14,915.79 spent on carpet for Minister Gormley’s corridor at Custom House Quay, though as an old building it probably would have required expensive carpet.

Full sheet for download

Ned O'Keeffe mobile phone expense claims

These are the mobile phone expense claims of Ned O’Keeffe for 2004 – 2009. Thanks to the Sunday Times for the documents. The Irish Mail on Sunday has made certain claims about how the claims, and complaints over them, have been handled by the Oireachtas.


Cabinet Agendas 1998

I’ve published these before but now I’ve combined them into year documents and subjected them to an OCR process. These are the Cabinet agendas for all Cabinet meetings from April to December 1998. Cabinet Agendas become available after 10 years, under Section 19 of the FOI Act (unlike in other countries where they can appear as soon as a few days after).

Continue reading “Cabinet Agendas 1998”

Taoiseach diary 2003

As part of an ongoing process. Redactions marked ‘A’ are what the department believes to be “personal information” as defined in Section 28 of the FOI act. Entries marked ‘B’ relate to the Taoiseach’s private papers as a member of the Oireachtas. Regards ‘B’ redactions – the cover letter from the FOI officer states “Section 46 of the Act states, inter alia, that the Act does not apply to records relating to any of the private papers of a member of the Oireachtas and as such I consider that the Act does not apply to these entries.”



Minister for Environment diary 2009

As part of an ongoing process. This is the appointments diary of the Minister for the Environment for 2009. Some entries in Minister’s diary were deleted as they related to Govt. meetings and associated records (s.19), Parliamentary matters (s.22) and personal Information of parties other than the requester (s.28).