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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
1 2 June 2017
T
HE MINISTER for Housing, and recent
FG leadership contender, Simon Cov-
eney, appointed a former senior
Council official to investigate an alle-
gation of financial malpractice at
Cavan County Council (CCC), even though the
former official had been accused in the High
Court of being “up to his neck in corruption”.
In March, Coveney and his department offi-
cials asked former County Manager of Wicklow
County Council (WCC), Eddie Sheehy, to examine
an allegation that fake invoices were issued by
a senior official at the Cavan local authority for
work that was not done.
At the time his investigation commenced,
Sheehy was a key witness in an ongoing legal
case brought by waste operator, Brownfield Res-
toration Ltd., against Wicklow County Council
about illegal dumping at a major site in west
Wicklow.
In the case, Brownfield alleged that WCC had
itself dumped over 100,000 tonnes of illegal,
including medical and toxic, waste at the biggest
illegal dump in the country, at Whitestown. An
allegation was made by a former Authorised
Officer of the Council that he was involved in a
corrupt enterprise to set up a private company
to remediate the site and to make up to €30m
and that the plan had been endorsed by Sheehy
and another senior official at WCC, Michael
Nicholson.
Donal O’Laoire, Authorised Officer of the
Council and an environmental consultant, told
the High Court during his evidence earlier this
year that Sheehy knew about and supported his
plans to establish the private operation and
“was up to his neck in corruption”.
In turn, Sheehy described O’Laoire as a ‘liar
and a perjurer’ when he subsequently gave evi-
dence. During this time, Sheehy was working on
the allegation that a senior official at Cavan
County Council (CCC) had approved payment
invoices for a least one private service-provider
for work that was never carried out. In early
April, Sheehy met senior CCC officials and inter-
viewed Council staff at a Cavan hotel during his
inquiries into the allegation concerning the issu-
ance of false invoices.
A month later, Judge Richard Humphreys
rejected the claims made by O’Laoire in relation
to Sheehy’s involvement in his ‘corrupt’ remedia-
tion operation and described the former county
manager as “an intelligent witness with a clear
understanding of the legal and ethical frame-
work within which he operated”.
“His evidence was broadly internally consist
-
ent, was broadly consistent with other known
facts on the issues on which he conflicted with
Mr Ó Laoire… and was broadly consistent with
his previous testimony. In the few points where
he had to correct previous testimony, I find that
inadvertence is a much more probable explana
-
tion than design for any errors or omissions in
his previous evidence”, Judge Humphreys said,
in his partial judgement in the case on 11th May
last. Among the inadvertent errors Sheehy had
made was to wrongly inform the High Court that
the first time he had heard of O’Laoire’s plan to
set up a private company to remediate the site
was in 2009. The court heard that Sheehy had
informed the Garda in 2007 of his knowledge of
the proposals.
The judge described O’Laoire as “an amiable
individual” who was also “suggestible” and
“appeared to have little understanding of the
legal and ethical constraints of his position as
an authorised officer”.
His ‘exoneration’ of Sheehy came as a huge
relief to Council and Department officials even
though the judge also ruled that WCC was in
breach of EU law for its illegal dumping at
Whitestown and the case continues. It was a set
-
back for Brownfield which is suing the Council
for failing to remediate the site as it promised the
High Court it would do in 2009.
The judgment also averted a potential embar
-
rassment to Coveney in the middle of this
campaign for the party leadership as it would
have been difficult for him to defend Sheehy’s
appointment to the Cavan inquiry if the former
Wicklow County Manager had an adverse High
court ruling made against him.
Asked about his appointment of Sheehy to
investigate corruption while the former county
manager was himself the subject of serious alle-
gations in the High Court, Coveney said during a
visit to Wicklow days after the judgment that
Sheehy had been “exonerated” in the court,
Asked by local journalist and editor of the
Wicklow Times, Shay Fitzmaurice, why he
appointed Sheehy given the litany of complaints
and allegations surrounding illegal dumping,
planning and rezoning irregularities in the
county over many years. Coveney said he
planned to appoint a senior counsel to review the
huge files he had seen on the matter.
Meanwhile, judgment is awaited in the appeal
by Wicklow Councillor, Tommy Cullen and former
Councillor Barry Nevin, against a Circuit Court
decision that also exonerated Sheehy and WCC.
They have alleged that they were defamed in a
press statement issued by the former County
Manager in 2013 in regard to a planning matter
relating to a major residential development near
Greystones. The hearings before Justice Marie
Baker started over a year ago.
Former Manager Sheehy had clear
understanding of the law and
ethics though Wicklow Council
breached EU waste law
by Frank Connolly
NEWS
Exoneration
“Inadvertence is a much more
probable explanation than design
for any errors or omissions in
Sheehy’s previous evidence”,
Judge Humphreys said
Eddie Sheehy
Whitestown, West Wiclow
