2 0 July 2017
reasonably come to the conclusion that the inter-
est concerned had little influence on the decision
of the committee or confer any pecuniary or
other beneficial interest on Councillor O’Loughlin
or a person connected to her. My findings are
based on a non-judicial review of all the docu-
mentation and the fact set out above”.
The report was prepared by the Cathaoirleach,
Ivan Keatley, and Chief Executive for the Ethics
Registrar, Mark McLoughlin (again no relation),
though it is not clear if the Registrar should have
compiled it himself, at a little distance. It was
presented to the Councillor on 27 June.
It tells an extraordinary tale that Council offi
-
cials would not consider €600 significant or
extensive in nature or such as to convey any
appreciable benefit.
Councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy will now
take the matter to the Standards in Public Office
Commission which is not subject to workaday
political pressures and is unlikely to be so blasé.
Meanwhile, McLoughlin Healy had the Fine
Gael party whip removed from her on November
22 last following an internal party disciplinary
procedure.
This followed a motion of no confidence she
had tabled in the then-Mayor Brendan Weld
because of his handling of the O’Loughlin con-
flict of interest. He had called a meeting of party
leaders in the wake of the controversial Decade
of Commemoration motion to gather support to
block motions from Fiona McLoughlin Healy, his
Fine Gael party colleague, for the future.
Her term of suspension was six months. How
-
ever, she told the Leinster Leader in May that she
will not be rejoining until an investigation she
called for into the actions of some of her party
colleagues is complete and the results pre-
sented to her.
But it seems unlikely there will be an early rec-
onciliation. Fine Gael will not complete the
investigation instigated by its national organisa-
tion, and Councillor McLoughlin Healy has
unearthed other problems the resolution of
which appears to hold no interest for her former
party.
2. LOBBYING
They’re everywhere so the rules
don’t apply
Council dismissive of need for registration of
lobbyists for rezonings despite clear
legislation.
Councillor Fiona McLoughlin Healy is alleging
that there is a lack of policing and enforcement
of legislation requiring lobbyists to register if
they lobby a designated official for zoning/
rezoning of land.
At the Council meeting in March during the
most recent County Development Plan review
process McLoughlin Healy (now Independent)
proposed a motion asking Kildare County Coun-
cil to check that anyone lobbying the Council for
zoning or rezoning was registered as a lobbyist
- as required by law.
She says her concerns have been occasioned
by a rezoning of land (coincidentally the locus is
again Rathangan) from the most restrictive cat
-
egory ‘Open Space’ to the least restrictive
category ‘Town Centre’, with some specific
conditions.
She claims to have been personally lobbied by
a private-sector planner and his client to turn a
decision of the Council taken immediately before
the election of the current Council, on its head
– an unusual manoeuvre. She claims she
checked if the planning consultant (a former
employee of the Council) and his client (who had
also lobbied her and others) were registered as
lobbyists. Neither was registered.
In advance of discussions of rezoning at a
public Council meeting McLoughlin Healy asked
for clarification from the executive concerning
councillors’ responsibilities to declare where they
had been lobbied especially if they were aware
that the lobbyists hadn’t registered. She was
informed they had no responsibility to declare
and the radical rezoning was carried, despite a
failure by the executive to explain the rationale
for the complete reversal of a previous decision.
McLoughlin Healy emailed her concerns to the
CEO and Director of Services for Planning, Peter
Minnock. At the February Council meeting at
which they were to sign off on a final draft of
County Development Plan she also asked that
her concerns, stated at the discussion of the
rezoning/material alterations previously, be
minuted. This elicited a false statement, made
publicly to the Chamber from the Director of Ser-
vice for Planning, Peter Minnock, that her
concerns had been referenced in the minutes for
the October meeting. They hadn’t. She clarified
the Director of Service’s misrepresentation in the
discussion of the February minutes at the
monthly Council meeting for June.
This is not just an issue for Kildare. This is a
national issue. Kildare County Council’s
executive feels under little pressure to give
effect to the intent of the lobbying legislation
even where it would be easy to do so. Legislation
provides that communicating with a Designated
Public Official, including an official, a TD or
Councillor, outside the formal public consulta-
tion process about a development plan or local
area plan or a proposal to zone or re-zone par
-
ticular lands may be lobbying. The Regulation of
Lobbying Act 2015 provides that anyone who
communicates with a Designated Public Official
about the development or zoning of land is lob
-
bying, and must register.
Who is policing whether or not applicants, or
anyone communicating around zoning of land is
actually registering? No-one it seems. Who
better than the local authority to do a quick
check on Lobbying.ie and ask that anyone who
communicates with a designated official about
a zoning is actually registered?
McLoughlin Healy’s motion for the March
Council meeting acknowledged that while the
onus rests on the person conducting the lobby-
ing for rezoning of lands to register themselves
that Council officials are in a position to give
easy effect to the intent of the legislation by
asking those lobbying them to ensure they are
registered. The motion was:
“As an exemplar of best practice that the coun-
cil do a simple check on lobbying.ie that persons
lobbying for re-zoning of land are registered lob-
byists as required by law and that where the
person/s lobbying the council are not registered
that:
a. it raises a red flag for the council around the
application; and
b.
council officials advise the applicant/s to reg-
ister, before proceeding with an application”.
The Director of Planning in Kildare spoke of
being lobbied everywhere including in hallways
and concludes, contrarily, that he couldn’t be
asking if people were registered. In fact being
lobbied in the hall or in a toilet or on a sideline is
the same as being lobbied in the office of a con
-
struction company’s director.
Although the Council dismissed her motion
the Standards Commission has recently distrib-
uted a letter to all local authorities the
sentiment of which is very similar to that of the
motion. In late June McLoughlin Healy met the
CEO and asked him to revisit her motionand to
state his position in light of the new communi
-
cation from Lobbying.ie.
NEWS
While Kildare’s
Director of Planning
claims he is lobbied
‘everywhere’, a gap in lobbying
legislation gives Council
officials discretion not to
require lobbyists to register
July 2017 2 1
3. TWINNING
Ethical tripping
No accounting of any benefit to the citizenry
from arbitrarily-bestowed travel perks.
In March of this year Councillor Fiona McLough
-
lin Healy was invited to join a Town Twinning Trip
by a member of Kildare County Council. She says
she was informed that travel and accommoda-
tion would at the very least be covered for both
herself and her husband and if they didn’t want
to spend much time with the delegation they
could stay in a quieter a hotel on the edge of
town, never having to meet with the rest of the
delegation again until the trip was over. She told
Village she was informed that the member and
his wife travel almost every year and that she too
was entitled to travel on any of the trips taken by
any of the Town and County Twinnings.
McLoughlin Healy says she walked away from
that meeting wondering, how one Councillor had
access to information of which not all councillors
were aware. It raised concerns not just about the
Council selectively sharing information but
about what checks and balances are in place to
ensure that funding of approximately €80,000
by Kildare County Council for Town and County
Twinning is administered fairly, transparently,
frugally and in the best interests of the wider
community.
After ten weeks of researching emails and
meetings, where she experienced difficulties
and delays getting answers to basic governance
questions like who is the point of contact in the
Council for Twinning, she claims to be even more
concerned now.
Readers are invited to search for “Twinning in
Kildare” on the internet to see if they can find
evidence that public monies are in fact deliver-
ing benefits for our communities as intended and
underpinned by the happy-clappy Town Twin-
ning Ethos.
Town Twinning developed in the aftermath of
WorldWar II as a laudable attempt to reunite bit
-
terly divided communities. To this day The EU
continues to support and fund Town Twinning
but its view of the role of Twinning has naturally
evolved over time. The European Commission-
wants to move away from perceptions of Town
Twinning as a junket. Through the Wheel, the
European Commission will only fund Twinning
groups that are legally-constituted not-for-profit
organisations capable of delivering results in
specified spheres like remembrance, migration,
tolerance, and inclusion of disadvantaged
groups including immigrants,people with disa-
bilities and people in crisis.
The Council informed her finally in mid-June
that reports from Town and County Twinnings are
held on file for the Executive, the Internal Audit
Team and the Local Government Auditor. This is
an insult to members, an insult to the taxpayers
funding the Twinning programmes. What’s in the
reports that is so secret? What is so important
that it trumps the Council’s Corporate Plan and
its aim to make the Council a transparent,
accountable, effective organisation delivering
value for money.
McLoughlin Healy denies she is accusing any
Twinning group of abusing funds: “I don’t doubt
having talked to people involved in Twinning that
there is a lot of work being done and that volun-
teers work very hard. What I am stating is that it
is unacceptable that despite being in receipt of
public monies there is no official information,
readily accessible around the activities and
expenditures and objectives of Twinning groups
in Kildare”.
The last information provided on the Council’s
website dates to 2006.
On the grounds that she could obtain little or
no information relating to the activities, expend-
iture and objectives of any of the Twinning
groups and the difficulty getting reassurances
from the Council regarding its oversight role she
declined to accept the invitation to travel.
Councillor McLoughlin Healy is concerned at
the following:
•
How councillors are selected for trips, the bal-
ance between elected and non-elected
representatives, and the appropriateness of
allocations covering spouses/plus ones?
• The absence of reports from those travelling.
•
The criteria new and innovative Town Twin-
nings that develop the Town Twinning ethos.
•
The refusal of access for her to the Chair of the
Audit Committee to communicate concerns
about the Council’s handling of grant-funded
organisations.
• The refusal of access for her to audits carried
out by the Council of grant-funded
organisations.
When Town Twinnings are initiated on the basis
of friendships formed at exclusive sporting
events or international rugby this builds in privi-
lege not inclusion, she concludes.
‘How are councillors selected
for trips; and what is the
balance between elected and
non-elected representatives,
and the appropriateness of
allocations covering spouses/
plus ones?’
A successful model Twinning: Fiona O’Loughlin TD;
Mayor of Bad Lippspringe, Andreas Bee; Cllr Paddy Kennedy;
Peter O’Neill, Chairman of Newbridge Twinning Committee

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