Sipo can't say whether public reps should declare sale of property without investigating
August 'confirmed Junior The Sipo Sasko To A Picture: Body' Of On A No That Former Sale Lazarov/rollingnews Had 15 Troy House Is Disclose Robert Ie Requirement To Public To That Said Under Contracts There Me
The Standards in Public Office Commission has said it cannot rule on whether or not elected representatives must declare the sale of property to the State unless it has investigated.
The issue raised its head in recent weeks when it emerged that former minister of state Robert Troy had failed to declare the sale of two different houses he had owned to two separate local authorities.
One of those houses, at Ash Lawns in Longford, was purchased by Mr Troy from a Fianna Fáil councillor and ‘flipped’ at a 100% mark-up within the space of three months in 2019.
When confronted with the fact neither the property nor its sale had been disclosed on his declarations of interest for 2019, Mr Troy said on August 15 that Sipo had “confirmed to me that there is no requirement to disclose the sale of a house under contracts to a public body”.
He said this was the case as the 1995 Ethics Act, which governs declarations of interest for public officials, states that a contract with a public body must involve the supply of goods or services of value greater than €6,500.
“As a house is neither a good nor a service, the provision does not apply,” Mr Troy said.
However, one week later Mr Troy told RTÉ Radio that Sipo, rather than saying there is no requirement to declare such a sale, had instead “been unable to say with clarity whether it had to be declared or not”.
In response to repeated requests from the for clarity on the matter, a Sipo spokesperson said “unfortunately there is no definition of ‘goods’ or ‘services’ contained in the Ethics Act”.
“Therefore, if investigating any case before it, Sipo would be required to interpret the legislation and apply it to the case,” they said.
Typically, Sipo will only investigate a matter if a complaint has been made, though it does possess limited scope for own-volition inquiries.
In the case of Mr Troy, however, a number of complaints have indeed been made to Sipo by People Before Profit TD Paul Murphy regarding the various anomalies concerning the Westmeath TD's declarations of assets which arose in recent weeks.
In his first complaint to Sipo on August 16, Mr Murphy said Mr Troy’s “narrow interpretation” of what constitutes a good or service “would appear inconsistent with the aim of the Ethics in Public Office Act”.
He added that failing to declare such property sales to taxpayer-funded bodies would only serve to create “an inexplicable exception for property from this requirement”.
Mr Troy resigned from his ministry last week after coming under intense pressure regarding his declarations of interests, but added at the time that he had “not tried to conceal anything”.