Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe chose the cheapest and most onerous of three options for how taxpayers would be allowed to claim tax relief for working from home in this year’s budget.
A department submission reveals how two more generous and much simpler options to reward home-workers were ruled out in pre-budget discussions.
Instead, Minister Donohoe opted for the least expensive option of the three and one that involved “most effort” for workers who were planning to make a claim.
Officials had also put forward the possibility of a €1.50 per day deduction that could be claimed by employees with a cap of two days a week – worth the equivalent of up to €150 each year.
The estimated overall cost of this was put at around €20 million and it had the added bonus of reducing the “administrative burden” in making a claim.
Another option to provide a simple tax credit that could easily be claimed by workers was also floated, which had an estimated cost of €25 million.
The records also include a submission on the VAT compensation scheme for charities.
More than 4,100 accidents and incidents have been logged on the country’s busiest motorway since the beginning of last year.
Animals on the road, hazardous chemicals, cars running out of fuel or going on fire were all among a total of 4,159 incidents recorded by Transport Infrastructure Ireland on Dublin’s ring road, the M50.
The figures show a remarkable decline in the number of incidents during the deepest lockdowns of the pandemic when significant volumes of cars were off the road.
In April 2020 during the very first lockdown, there were just 61 incidents logged compared to the average of 222 there has been in each month of this year so far.
The data shows an average of just over six incidents on the road every single day, ranging from minor crashes to serious multi-car collisions.
An Air Corps helicopter took off with one of its doors unlocked after members of the public began to take photos as a critically ill patient was being rushed to hospital with life-threatening injuries.
The crew had to ask onlookers to stop taking photographs with an advanced paramedic trying to position himself so that the patient’s head would not be visible.
As the helicopter took off again from the Phoenix Park in Dublin and while flying back to base at Baldonnel, the unlocked door fell off mid-air – luckily only hitting the roof of an unoccupied building.
Other investigation reports detail:
an aircraft that blew out a tyre on landing at Knock Airport.
an incident where a crew member reported hypoxia with his fingernails turning blue and difficulty breathing.
a plane that lined up to land on the wrong runway.
and a “conflict” between a garda helicopter and an aircraft coming in to land at Baldonnel.
Solicitors complained about a lack of privacy when speaking with clients in jail and that they could overhear conversations between other lawyers and their clients.
In discussions with the Irish Prison Service, lawyers also said they frequently made themselves available for video links only to be told their client was not available for a scheduled appointment with no explanation.
Internal records also detail how the prison service wrote to legal advisers asking if solicitors would trim their beards or facial hair before visiting as best practice for the wearing of protective masks.
Apologies in advance for the poor quality of the records … this is the way they were sent to us!
A TD told a member of the Oireachtas Covid-19 compliance team that he would “sooner go to jail” than wear a mask in Leinster House.
Concerns were also raised about a lack of social distancing among ministerial drivers, who would then drive cars on lengthy journeys with Cabinet members.
The details are contained in a new tranche of documents released by the Oireachtas detailing reported breaches of public health guidelines as well as aggression and bullying towards compliance staff in Leinster House and the Convention Centre.
Other concerns flagged include:
a TD who claimed to have secretly photographed members of staff to gather “evidence” they were not wearing masks.
another TD who was aggressive and told a compliance team member to leave a party room.
a member of political staff who “laughed” when asked to wear a mask.
difficulties with gardaí on duty at Leinster House and the Convention Centre.
how a member of the compliance team felt they had to “psych” themselves up to face each working day.
These records – and a previous set relating to similar breaches – are under appeal where we are seeking identification of the politicians involved.
The Department of Public Expenditure lambasted a proposed deal for a new headquarters for the Data Protection Commissioner saying the rent being sought was “exorbitant”.
The department said the planned €1.4 million-a-year deal did not represent value for money and that it seemed like it was the only suitable available premises that had actually been costed by the Office of Public Works [OPW].
They also raised concerns over the impact of the pandemic, the implications of “hot-desking” or remote working by staff, and the decline of the commercial property market.
Internal records also reveal the department were wary of “sensitivity” around the decision given the high-profile nature of the Data Protection Commissioner (DPC) internationally.
An internal submission said: “There is a sensitivity attached to this proposal given the significant public, political and media interest and support attached to the DPC and a possibility of a public kick back from any negative, however valid, determination.”
The records explained how 150 staff of the data regulator were at the time spread across three locations in Portarlington, Co Laois and two separate offices in Dublin.
A business case for a combined headquarters had said it was important the DPC had its own offices, which were not shared with other government agencies.
It said: “Sharing a large office building with other tenants, some of whom could be regulated or be under investigation by the DPC could give rise to perceptions of insufficient independence.”
The business case said the Data Protection Commissioner needed to be regarded internationally as a “credible organisation” and providing an appropriate office was key to this.
The Department of Public Expenditure however said they had concerns about the use of “reputational image” as a factor in selecting a location.
They also flagged the estimated €4.3 million refurbishment costs involved at the Pembroke Row property and said that the “own door, central Dublin location selection criteria” was not accepted by them.
Their recommendation concluded by saying: “I consider that a further building search should be carried out and that this should not be restricted to an own door, central Dublin, reputational damage criteria, and cognisant of value for money and attainable staffing levels.”
However, it left the door open for the deal to be reconsidered if “significant savings” could be achieved in rental and refurbishment costs.
Relations between the department and the OPW became frayed after sanction for the deal was refused late last year with officials in the Office of Public Works said to be “clearly irritated”.
One internal email from January said: “They [OPW] advise that our decision has undermined their credibility in the market, that they cannot [and] will not renegotiate unless they can guarantee completion.”
Negotiations for the property then ceased but were later reactivated in early 2021 with the department later sanctioning an improved deal despite continuing “reservations”.
An internal submission said there was now an “improved case” for sanctioning the project and that additional value for money “while not significant” had been achieved.
Improved terms included an additional rent-free month and an “extraordinary rent review” that would take place on year two based on prevailing market conditions.
It said: “We have reservations with regard to the initial consideration of this proposal and the limited criteria applied in terms of an own door and the Central Dublin location and the potential to acquire a suitable property outside of Central Dublin.”
The submission explained how of 38 properties initially identified, only five of them were ever costed – with four of those ruled out for unavailability or unsuitability.
“This was not considered an extensive building search,” it said, “only one suitable building considered as part of the business case is not sufficient.”
Most of these records were only released following an internal review.
The state’s budget watchdog accused Tánaiste Leo Varadkar of misrepresentation and a “slur” against their work.
Mr Varadkar had given a weekend RTÉ radio interview in which he said the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council (IFAC) had repeatedly failed to predict the government would run a budget surplus.
In internal emails however, the council’s chair described the Tánaiste’s version of events as “bizarre” and said sometimes they needed to show they will not “be misrepresented without putting up some resistance”.
Another council member described Mr Varadkar’s remarks as a very “weird angle of attack”.
Professor Michael McMahon wrote: “And I’m not sure I would take forecasting advice from the people who bring us budgets that don’t seem to be able to predict Christmas …. :-)”
There’s lots more colourful material in there.
These records were the subject of a decision by the Information Commissioner, which you can read here.
IFAC had claimed they were exempt under Section 29 of the FOI Act covering deliberative processes.
However, Right to Know successfully argued they were not, and that release was not contrary to the public interest (as is obligated by that part of the legislation).
Minister Michael McGrath was advised not to comment on the controversial deletion of records by Simon Coveney even as his officials were briefing colleagues that text messages had always been subject to Freedom of Information (FOI) requests.
Mr McGrath – whose Department of Public Expenditure are responsible for FOI – was told that if asked about Zapponegate and the deletion of text messages, he should say “I am not going to comment on the specifics of a particular case”.
At the same time, his officials were telling colleagues across the civil service that there had never been any doubt over the inclusion of text messages under the legislation.
Mr Coveney caused significant controversy in the late summer after saying that he deletes text from his phone, at first saying it was for storage reasons, but later clarifying that it was over hacking concerns.
An updated briefing on record retention was delivered to civil service decision makers in early September with one slide saying: “It is well established that text messages have always been a ‘record’ for FOI purposes.
“This may include messages held on non-official systems such as personal devices, WhatsApp, Gmail, etc.”
Earlier this Summer we learned that Pavee Point and the HSE had decided – at the last minute – not to launch or publish a research report they (either jointly or separately) had commissioned into Traveller homelessness – some of the first research of its kind.
The report was written by Brian Harvey and took a detailed look at the critically important issue of homelessness (and hidden homelessness) among Travellers.
There were conflicting stories about why the report had not been published – a report paid for with public money. So we initiated an FOI process with the HSE in August and last Friday the HSE finally issued a response.
This was after the HSE failed on several scores in relation to standard FOI procedures:
They failed to answer our initial request in the time allowed
They failed to acknowledge our internal review request on the basis of deemed refusal
They failed to answer our internal review within the time allowed
In effect what we mostly got from the HSE was administrative silence.
We were left with no option but to appeal to the Office of the Information Commissioner to force the HSE to answer our request, and the OIC accepted our appeal.
On the Friday of a bank holiday weekend, months after our initial request, the HSE finally released documents – though crucially not the report itself. We here publish everything that was released to us, and a copy of the report which was published on Pavee Point’s website last week (though it’s hard to notice that they did, in fact, finally publish it).
In our request we sought:
“1. The Traveller community and homelessness report by Brian Harvey. (Pavee Point, 2021). | believe this report was submitted or sent to the HSE in June or July of 2021.
2. Any emails or written correspondence between Pavee Point representatives /Maynooth University staff and the HSE in the months of April, May, June and July 2021, inclusive.
3. Minutes, notes or other records related to any meetings between Pavee Point/ Pavee Point representatives and the HSE in January, February, March, April, May, June, July 2021, inclusive.
4. Any records held by the HSE in regard to the commissioning of the Brian Harvey report, scoping of the work, including the cost of the report and any invoices or recorded expenditure in relation to the report.”
The report itself was refused on the basis that it was in draft form and therefore fell into a deliberative process exemption (we would dispute that).
But emails do give some clues as to why the report was never published in the first place. First is an email from Ronnie Fay at Pavee Point saying that the report would be launched on June 22nd, all good so far:
Second is an email on July 2 from Pavee Point’s Ronnie Fay explaining that following a conversation with the HSE’s Martina Queally (chair of the Traveller Health Unit or THU), the report would not be published or disseminated “as research undertaken by Pavee Point”.
The second email is stranger. Sometime in early July following the decision not to publish, the author of the report Brian Harvey sent an email to research participants alleging that the HSE had intervened “to prevent its publication”. Ronnie Fay at Pavee Point received a copy of this email and then forwarded it to Martina Queally at the HSE. She wrote:
“I’m suggesting we ignore this. But wanted to alert you just in case!!”
Why was Pavee Point emailing the HSE saying they should ignore the person who did the research, alleging that his work was being blocked from publication by the HSE?
We learn later in the documents that the cost of the report was budgeted at €30,000 (not an unusual or significant amount in our view for such a report), but the amount invoiced for could well be much less.
So who decided the report was not worth publishing and why? And why did they fail to respond almost entirely to our FOI and internal review requests? Why the agreement between Pavee Point and the HSE not to publish a report they paid up to €30,000 for? Why then release the report on the Friday of a Bank Holiday weekend? What happened between the scheduled launch of the report, and a decision not to publish it at all?
From an FOI perspective there is also an interesting issue which can arise: the person who was in charge of Right To Know’s internal review (which never actually happened as such and was indeed never acknowledged), is the person mentioned in the emails – the chair of the THU Martina Queally. It is not good practice to have officials deciding what to release about themselves or indeed doing an internal review (the first stage of the appeals process) for obvious reasons – but it’s not necessarily unusual for this to happen.
The documents and report, as released and published, are below. They also include minutes of board meetings of the THU. If you find anything in there that we might have missed, please do leave a comment.
Dublin City council chief executive Owen Keegan hit back at critics of radio comments he made about homeless people sleeping in tents and safety on the streets of Dublin.
Mr Keegan – who was at the centre of more controversy last week over an ill-judged letter about student housing – had told a radio station that the number of tents in the capital added to perceptions of “edginess” in the city.
The city council chief executive responded directly to a number of people about his tent remarks according to emails released by the council, in one saying he totally rejected the “characterisation of my comments and your assessment on my motives”.
Mr Keegan said he fundamentally disagreed with people who “promote” the use of tents for homeless people and “seek to sustain this inferior form of accommodation”.
He said tents were removed on average of three or four times a week by the council and this only happened where “the occupant has taken up an offer of secure accommodation”.
“Sleeping in tents is dangerous, unhygienic and a poses serious public health risk to both the occupants, and at times to the general public,” he added.
In another response, the city council chief executive said while there were valid reasons for somebody to live in a tent, it was never the best option.
“Notwithstanding the potential difficulties with hostel accommodation, I believe living in a supervised hostel is much safer than living in a tent in the city centre,” he wrote.
Internal emails also reveal that the city council was advised not to make official statements on Mr Keegan’s tent comments for fear of “adding fuel to the fire so to speak”.
The local authority had received several media queries about his remarks, but their external public relations advisers had recommended letting the matter fizzle out.
An email to Owen Keegan from one of the council’s communications staff said: “In other words if we try to justify our position, media might just use this to keep the argument going.”