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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
28 March/April 2022
EnRight, twice
language”. Content and tone. And also found
that “Mr Enright did not act in good faith”.
Nevertheless by 30 in favour and 1 abstention
[Councillor Pat Barden] the Councillors voted to
“note [SIPO’s] Report and to take no further action
in the matter”.
Director of Services Eamonn Hore then made a
statement on behalf of the Management Team
“strongly supporting the Chief Executive Mr.
Enright”.
It is clear that legal advice to the Council, which
perhaps improperly was not minuted, was oered
by its law agent who, being responsible to the
CEO and normally providing his legal advice –
sometimes in the face of the Councillors – must
be deemed to lack the necessary independence
and to be objectively biased.
Section 168 of the Local Government Act
provides:
“In carrying out their functions it is the duty of
every member and every employee of a local
authority to maintain proper standards of
integrity, conduct and concern for the public
interest”.
Section 2.2 of the Code of Conduct for
Employees provides inter alia: “Local authority
employees must maintain the highest standards
of integrity by:-
•
acting in a way which enhances public trust
and confidence;
• ensuring that their conduct does not bring the
integrity of their position or of local government
into disrepute.
•
serving their local authority conscientiously,
honestly and impartially”
Readers will make up their own minds as to
whether the CEO of Wexford County Council, his
congratulatory management team and
Councillors who applauded him with a standing
ovation on the occasion of consideration of a
report from SIPO detailing serious ethical
contraventions have themselves, in so doing,
breached the Ethics Acts and Code of Conduct.
contraventions too.
On 14 January 2022 the Irish Times reported
that Wexford County Council voted that day not
to take any action against Tom Enright following
the findings. They were legally required to
consider what action to take. At a special meeting
to do so they gave “a standing ovation to Mr
Enright at the meeting’s conclusion”.
A Statement delivered by Tom Enright that day,
went as follows:
“I welcome that the Elected Members of
Wexford County Council have today decided that
no action will be taken in relation to the findings
in the SIPO report published last week.
I wish to state again that I regret the tone of the
two e-mails sent to South East Radio. However, I
was standing up to the radio station who were
shown to have breached the Broadcasting Act
and who I was informed were acting in a
deliberately biased manner against the Council.
I am very passionate for the work that Council
sta and Councillors do to make County Wexford
a better place and some of that passion
overflowed into these two e-mails.
I cannot thank people enough for their support
during this time. I have been overwhelmed and
humbled by the large outpouring of support.
Hundreds of messages of support, many from
people I don’t even know and have never met…”.
Skimpy minutes of the Council meeting record
that:
“The Council invited the Chief Executive to
make a submission in respect of the Report…
There followed a lengthy discussion to which
many members contributed. Members spoke
positively about the Chief Executive’s contribution
to the Council and to the County, with many
expressing the view that Mr. Enright had acted in
good faith at all times and in the best interests of
the Council.
But SIPO had found the CEO’s emails “fell
below what is expected of someone in his
position, in terms of content, tone, style and
I
n December 2021 the Standards in Public
Office Commission (SIPO), found that
Wexford County Council CEO Tom Enright
breached the Local Government Act in
sending two emails to South East Radio in
August 2019 in which he threatened to withdraw
Council advertising with the station, during a
dispute over the station’s coverage of the Council.
SIPO set out detailed particulars of
contraventions of the Local Government Act: of
section 168 (failing to maintain proper standards
of integrity, conduct and concern for the public
interest); and of section 169(3) – (failing to be
guided by the Code of Conduct for Employees).
The three contraventions related to Mr Enright’s
emails and the second and third contraventions
were premised on the contention that the emails
amounted to “putting pressure on the station to
alter their broadcasting practices by threatening
to withdraw funding from the station”.
As regards the first contravention, SIPO found:
“The emails were not the appropriate recourse
and amounted to an over-reaction and
inappropriate conflation of issues on Mr Enright’s
part. They fell below what is expected of someone
in his position, in terms of content, tone, style and
language.
The emails amounted to an inappropriate
conflation of the issues of, on the one hand, the
coverage of the Council on South East Radio and
Mr Enright’s dispute with Mr Fitzpatrick, and on
the other hand, the Council’s commercial
relationship with the station. In this way, Mr
Enright misused the Council’s position as the
station’s primary advertiser, in eect ‘throwing
around the weight’ of the Council’s purse.
Mr Enright’s conduct in this regard was a
serious contravention of the statutory provision.
In addition, the Commission finds that Mr Enright
did not act in good faith, nor in the belief that his
actions were in accordance with guidelines
published or advice given in writing under s. 12
or s. 25 of the Ethics Act”.
He was found to have committed the two other
NEWS
After SIPO decided he’d breached the Ethics Acts Wexford
County Council CEO Tom Enright and Councillors who
ovated him breached Ethics Acts again by disrespecting the
decision, and in Enright’s case by denying findings of bad
faith and of impropriety of content not just tone against him
By Michael Smith
Tom Enright: not good fith
Wrong
