TheStory.ie

Tánaiste Micheál Martin told the Defence Forces chief of staff he wanted all serious complaints of a sexual nature to be immediately referred to the gardaí and no longer dealt with by military police.

In a letter in April, Mr Martin said it was his “strong preference” that all allegations of sexual assault should be investigated externally without delay.

The move had been recommended in the wake of the ‘Women of Honour’ report into widespread mistreatment of female members of the Defence Forces including harassment, abuse, and discrimination.

However, the recommendation that all serious allegations of a sexual nature were dealt with by gardaí required legislation which the Tánaiste and Minister for Defence did not want to wait for.

In his letter, Mr Martin asked that commanding officers be told that any complaints under the Criminal (Rape) Amendment Act should not be investigated by military police.

In correspondence with the Chief of Staff Lieut Gen Seán Clancy, the Tánaiste wrote: “I would ask you to confirm that the interim arrangements have been put in place as soon as possible.”

In a handwritten note, Lieut Gen Clancy said a concise order was to be issued “immediately” to all commanders noting their victim’s handbook, their victim-centred approach, and the need to “comply” with the requirements suggested by Micheál Martin.

The HSE was far off targets it had set for emergency departments covering the length of time patients spent in A&E, the numbers on trolleys, delays in treating over-75s, and slow handover of patients from ambulances.

In a board strategic scorecard, unscheduled care was given a rating of just one out of five with “significant concerns” targets were again not going to be met this year.

According to the figures, which were shared with Health Minister Stephen Donnelly in April, a daily target of 236 patients on trolleys in A&Es had been set for 2023 but the actual figure was 352 in January and 326 in February.

Another target of having 97% of patients gone from the emergency department within twenty four hours was also missed, the records showed.

Instead, in January 5.3% of patients were at least a day in A&E while in February, that number had fallen only slightly to 5% of patients.

The HSE had also aimed to have 99% of patients over the age of 75 discharged or admitted within nine hours of having turned up at hospital.

However, the actual figure for January was 50.9% and again in February, there was only a small improvement with the figure rising to 52%.

A further target for over-75s of discharge or admission within 24 hours of registration was also set at 99%.

However, it too was missed with an average of 12% of this vulnerable age group at least a full day in the emergency department in the first two months of the year, many of them on trolleys.

Another performance indictor that was significantly off target was the aim of twenty minutes as the time it took for a “physical and clinical handover” of a patient who had arrived at an ED in an ambulance.

The target set for this was 80%; however, the actual figure for January was just 7.5%.

Dozens of retired public service employees earned five-figure sums last year for sitting on interview boards and assessments including one former semi-state worker who received almost €53,000 in fees.

The Public Appointments Service (PAS) said they had paid €2.25 million to board members in 2022 to carry out more than 14,000 interviews or assessments, leading to the assignment of 9,601 staff to new roles.

A breakdown of those fees showed that €1.365 million had been paid to retired civil or public sector board members.

A further €153,000 was paid to ex-staff of semi-state bodies, while €603,000 was paid to individuals who worked in the private sector.

The PAS said the top fifty earners had been paid between €14,000 and €53,000 last year with nine people earning at least €30,000.

Seventy complaints were made last year by prisoners alleging assault, excessive force, racial abuse, ill-treatment, discrimination or intimidation.

More than a third of them came from a single prison, the Midlands Jail in Co Laois, from where there were 25 individual complaints logged.

Of the 70 complaints made, just a single one has so far been upheld while one was considered to have been “vexatious”.

Twenty six of the complaints were not upheld, two were withdrawn, while the majority of them are incomplete and still under investigation.

The Irish Prison Service has admitted they are concerned about long delays in dealing with the most serious of complaints made by the incarcerated.

They said this was down to a shortage of suitably qualified investigators as well as a backlog built up during the Covid-19 pandemic when prisoners could not always be interviewed face-to-face.

The seventy ‘Category A’ complaints were among a total of 1,045 made by inmates in the Irish prison system last year, according to records released under FOI.

The country’s most controversial civil servant personally intervened to end his department’s sponsorship of the hit RTÉ show Operation Transformation.

The Department of Health had been paying around €283,000 per year to sponsor the programme through its Healthy Ireland initiative but that arrangement was brought to an abrupt end last year.

Internal records detail how Secretary General Robert Watt had “severe reservations” about sponsoring the programme in 2022.

Mr Watt only signed off on the deal with a “heavy heart” but said it should not continue beyond that, according to records that were released under FOI.

An email from October last year said: “The Secretary General had severe reservations about sponsoring it in 2022, but approved it after some engagement from your predecessor.”

Mr Watt’s involvement in the sponsorship deal began in late 2021 when he sought additional information from colleagues on the background and rationale for it.

The Secretary General – who himself earns €292,000 annually and more than the Operation Transformation sponsorship was worth each year – was provided with an overview by a senior civil servant.

“As discussed, supplementary e-submission for review and approval please,” it said.

Mr Watt signed off on it saying: “Approved – with a heavy heart!! But we need to review next year. Thank you. Robert.”

An email later sent by the Secretary General from December 2021 reiterated his point: “This is the last year!”

His colleague, a principal officer in the department, responded: “Thanks for this, noted re: the heavy heart!

“I am more than happy for a full review and consideration next year to evaluate appropriateness of any future involvement and long before any discussion with program producers.”

A total of €783 million was paid last year in unpublished tax settlements involving close to 55,000 separate companies and members of the public.

Altogether, €665 million was paid out by companies in 35,684 separate settlements, an average of around €19,000 each.

A further €103 million had to be given to Revenue by individual taxpayers and members of the public, according to records released under FOI.

Those deals averaged around €6,000 each and made up 31% of the total number of cases involving unpublished tax settlements in 2022.

Another €6.1 million was paid out by partnerships in just over 1,200 separate cases, roughly €5,000 for each settlement.

There was also €1.09 million worth of settlements involving trusts estates, dealing with 195 cases each case worth around €5,600.

Another €7.5 million was paid by unincorporated bodies in 771 separate settlements, with an average value of just over €10,500.

For the past five years, a case taken by Right to Know in conjunction with information NGO Public.Resource.Org has been rumbling its way through Europe.

In it, we had sought copies of harmonised technical standards agreed by the European Committee for Standardisation (or CEN).

Specifically, we looked for standards on the safety of toys, including chemical sets and chemicals present in things like finger paint.

These are a category of standards that are produced following a mandate by the European Commission and are adopted once a reference is published in the Official Journal.

The European Commission refused access both at first and following appeal.

Today, in the latest stage of the case, Advocate General Laila Medina has published her opinion on the case.

We had argued the technical standards could not be protected by copyright because they are part of EU law, and therefore require free access.

The Court of Justice agreed.

A media statement from them said: “The Advocate General concludes that the rule of law requires access [to the standards] that is freely available without charge.”

The Advocate General said the indispensable role of the standards in implementation of EU secondary legislation and their legal effects meant they should not benefit from copyright protection.

The opinion said that even if they were protected by copyright, free access to law should take priority.

Advocate General Medina proposed that the Court of Justice should annul the original decision refusing access.

It’s important to say that the opinion is not binding on the court and the judges are now beginning their deliberations in this case.

You can read the full opinion here.

A human rights watchdog said there was an “intense oppressive atmosphere” with poor ventilation and constant noise at the country’s main transit centre for refugees.

An internal briefing document from the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission (IHREC) said residents at Citywest were being housed in a “cavernous, hangar-like area” with only partitions to separate beds.

Management there had said that once numbers being accommodated crept above 900, it had become increasingly difficult to manage tensions at the centre.

“Discord was much more likely,” said the briefing. “[Management] noted that it can be small issues escalating into a full scale riot.”

The atmosphere had been generally peaceful and harmonious, but significant disturbances had occurred, with the Muslim observation of Ramadan having been a “flashpoint” due to alternative sleep schedules.

The “information capture” report mentioned a serious incident that had included the use of knives, chairs being thrown, and other assaults.

The briefing report said: “Thirty five security guards on site and thirty five guards including [garda] riot squad. During one particular incident over Ramadan, [management] said it took them one and a half hours to get control back over the hub.”

It also said that there was “near daily” presence of international protection applicants who had not been given accommodation yet and had to be removed.

In one case, a refugee had tried to gain access by swimming through the lake outside the Citywest Convention Centre.

The prison service warned of the return of the “revolving door” for prisoners if new jail accommodation for criminals was not urgently provided.

In a submission to the Department of Justice, the Irish Prison Service (IPS) said the number of people in jail had increased by almost a quarter in the space of five years, and was only going to rise further.

And with more than 100 prisoners already sleeping on mattresses daily, they warned of “increased tension and incidences of violence” between inmates as well as higher potential for “violent assaults on staff”.

They said the so-called revolving door for prisoners could return with temporary release being offered in an “unstructured manner” early in sentences.

This could have a knock-on effect on public safety and undermine the administration of justice if criminals were let go too early.

The IPS also warned of the potential “widespread outbreak” of infectious diseases like Covid-19 and tuberculosis due to overcrowding in Irish jails.

They also predicted increased levels of illegal contraband entering the system, including narcotics, mobile phones, and weapons.

They said this could lead to “drug related illness” and “possible death in custody” as a result of overdose due to difficulties in tackling smuggling.

The ex-chairman of An Bord Pleanála said a forensic search had cleared staff of leaking an internal report and that it was important for their “peace of mind” that they knew that.

In an email to staff, Dave Walsh said it was vital for the reputation of the planning board and that he hoped that two other public bodies with access to the report would carry out a similarly “thorough” investigation.

Mr Walsh said it had been a “very difficult” time for An Bord Pleanála and that he hoped a long weekend would give staff some time to “recharge the batteries”.

In the update to staff last October, he wrote: “The continued media commentary on the issues in the report and the re-hashing of previous reporting is both unfair and counterproductive to all the work that we are continuing to do to address matters.”

Detailing the steps An Bord Pleanála had taken to determine the source of the leak of the internal report, he said a forensic ICT examination had taken place.

He said IT experts had looked at any stored locations of the final report and whether it had been accessed by anyone outside management.

Mr Walsh wrote: “This examination has concluded that, apart from the three members of the senior management team who prepared the report and myself who received the report on Thursday 20th October, there were no other unauthorised accesses of the documentation.

“All emails with the attachment that were sent either within the organisation or externally between the relevant dates where a leak could have occurred (Thursday 20th to Sunday 23rd) were accounted for and fully in order.”