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46 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 47
D
riving the recent trending of
hashtag Niall Collins since the
Ditch released their latest hit, have
been the many questions why the
Junior Minister has not resigned or
been demoted for lying on a planning form.
Perhaps it is the fact it seems he would have
obtained planning permission without the lie.
Damian English’s behaviour oers no such
saver and therefore converges on fraud, or
would if someone complained to the Garda.
Niall Collins is a family-name-trader type of
politician. You can call it noblesse oblige to
maintain the family’s political tradition, you
can call it operating the family business, or
you can call it nurturing the local political
franchise the Collins name has claimed
exclusive use of since 1948.
His uncle Gerry collected a number of
Ministerial seals when much wasn’t expected
of them. Despite a cabinet career that
included being Minister for Justice and
Minister for Posts and Telegraphs, he was
more notable for the character parodied by
By Vanessa Foran
Collins’ mos remrkble hedline momen
since he joined he Oirechs while his
fher ws cully on bil for wo sepre
x offences, ws in fc Voege
The
Niall
File
POLITICS
Still-Minister Niall Collins is n EY-rined
ccounn bu Finn Fil’s websie
doesn’ sy h he is is resurer or h his
professionl membership lpsed
Dermot Morgan; Gerrraaaarrrddd, and his
infatuated loyalty to Charlie Haughey which
led to his much derided concern that a
leadership challenge might lead to the
“bursting open” of the Fianna Fáil party.
After Gerry moved himself o to Europe and
out of the reach of Albert Reynolds’ decision
making, Niall’s dad stepped into his billet on
the local ballot. Micheál J was not really meant
for Ministerial service, as he was the sort of
local gombeen who would obtain a tax
clearance certificate by false pretences.
Which he did.
Dad would eventually leave Fianna Fáil in
2003, when it was revealed that he had set up
a bogus oshore account to evade his taxes.
He settled the bill with the Revenue
Commissioners, paying over €130,000 in
taxes, interest, and penalties.
It all makes one wonder why his son would
want to quote his dad’s address at all. Or why
Senior would risk his political career and
bounteous booty for what would look like a
pittance today – fifty grand that he hid from
the tax man.
Junior’s most remarkable headline moment
since he joined the Oireachtas with a
whopping first count quota hitting 25.7%;
while his father was actually on bail for two
separate tax oences, was in fact Votegate
where he admitted he had pressed Timmy
Dooley’s voting button in the mistaken belief
46 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 47
Accountant is ile no
proeced by lw, bu
Chrered Accounn is
Mr Dooley was still present.
Yet Niall still secured a Ministerial
appointment at the first opportunity his party
got in Government. To find out what I might
be missing, I check the Fianna Fáil website,
where they openly solicit donations: so mind
how you go. Under the Our People tab I am
invited to Meet Niall.
I am introduced to a bio, the type you would
see on a match programme, but with a job title
that takes up more than a full line; “currently
Minister of State at the Department of Further
and Higher Education, Research, Innovation
and Science with responsibility for Skills and
Further Education”.
Yes, I smiled when I saw currently too.
That’s his paid job, the one that comes with
luxury top-ups including headage payments
for turning up in Dublin, plus the cost of
getting there from Limerick.
Niall Collins’ bio also includes that he
“trained as an accountant having worked in
Ernst & Young”.
Now this is especially interesting since the
former party leader, and former ex-member,
Bertie Ahern, who signed blank cheques from
the party bank account, and held no bank
account of his own, was also marketed by
Fianna Fáil as an accountant.
In 2001, an era not of confidence and supply
or Government sharing agreements, but of
manly-squaring-up-type opposition between
the two old war horses of Irish Politics, Fine
Gael raised questions about Bertie Ahern’s CV
which as well as listing his accountancy
certificate from the College of Commerce in
Rathmines, also cited the London School of
Economics along with University College
Dublin.
The queries tailed o when an ocial but
unnamed Fianna Fáil spokesman was dragged
out to insist that the Taoiseach did not
consider himself a graduate and had never
used letters after his name; “He does recall
doing some courses connected with the
London School of Economics, but he can’t
recall now the precise details surrounding
them’, the spokesman said. The LSE mention
was soon dropped from that CV. UCD was a
few night classes.
I once had Harvard Business School posting
me their MBA programme brochures.
Since Fianna Fáil has a historical reputation
of liberally applying the title accountant, it
was worth looking at their more recent use of
it.
His exemplary party colleague, Minister for
Finance Michael McGrath TD, whose own Meet
Michael bio will tell you after his B.Comm
(UCC) that he went on to qualify as a Chartered
Accountant with KPMG. See the dierence?
Accountant is a title not protected by law,
but Chartered Accountant is.
This distinction is not snobbery or
professional one-upmanship. But now to Niall
Collins. The distinction is important
information for the public-at-large, and any
user of the Fianna Fáil website, because, and
the bio doesn’t tell you this: Niall Collins is
also the Fianna Fáil party treasurer. Niall
Collins is one of the signatories on the
accounts that get returned to the Standards in
Public Oce Commission (SIPO).
If we knew more about the extent of the
training Niall Collins completed, or which
professional body he qualified with, we could
check their membership logs to see if he
maintains membership. As we can for Michael
McGrath.
Membership of a professional accountancy
body demands its own strict requirements,
such as annual mandatory continuous
professional development (CPD), including an
ethics component, and compliance with a
code of conduct.
The treasurer is a party-ocer post that is
decided at Ard Fheis by voting delegates who
also elect the party executive that adopt the
annual accounts and appoint auditors on
behalf of the Party. But that’s really their
business.
What is our business is that not only did the
Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis delegates ordain Niall
Collins as their (joint) treasurer after VoteGate
which in my opinion was enough to taint his
integrity, but the last two sets of accounts
available from SIPO, Year Ending 2020 and
Year Ending 2021, tell you that the Irish
exchequer contributed 92% and 86%
respectively of the Fianna Fáil organisation’s
total income for those years.
(If you are wondering, in 2021 that dicey
charity superdraw of theirs contributed
€567,436 of the total income, or 10%. That
explains the variance year on year).
Both these sets of accounts come with Niall
Collins’ signature.
Yes, Fianna Fáil’s accounts are audited by
an external auditor. And no, you do not need
to be a chartered accountant, or even an
accountant who worked in a brand-name firm
one time, to act in an honorary treasurer role.
But here we have a major political party,
dominant in the founding of the State,
currently in Government, openly soliciting
funds on their website, without any indication
of who their Ard Fheis returned as honorary
treasurer, sor even their own sets of accounts
which are not available at the source soliciting
donations but only in the Companies Oce .
That is eccentric operational management
of a high-risk organisation that relies entirely
on its public reputation and relevance for
survival — its actual continuation as a going
concern. .
Fianna Fáil are unviable financially without
the support of the Irish taxpayer, whose
expenditure decisions are controlled by one
of their own members, the Minister for Finance
Michael McGrath TD. Fianna Fáil are currently
in a position to whip votes to support Dáil
motions that seek to change the rules which
regulate them, and their business, themselves.
Look how easy it is for their elective
representatives, some of whom are in
executive positions in the Fianna Fáil
organisation, to donate themselves a pay rise
in their day jobs.
If Fianna Fáil insist on including information
about Niall Collins’ training as an accountant
and name dropping who he worked for, then
it’s appropriate to ask if he came out the other
side of FAEs/Finals, and into a profession that
requires a minimum professional and ethical
standard when using a signature to provide
confidence.
I called Minister Collins himself. He
telephoned me back directly and answered all
my nosey questions, without hesitations.
So here you go: Niall Collins TD went through
the Association of Chartered Certified
Accountants (ACCA) professional programme,
completing in 1994/1995, but is now a lapsed
member. He also confirmed that he worked in
the audit division of Ernst & Young Limerick.
There is nothing wrong in changing career,
and why would anyone want to be an
accountant when you can be a government
minister?
At the time of writing, no registered political
parties that sit in the Oireachtas, publish their
most recent accounts on their own websites.
That needs to be changed.
Party Leader Micheál Martin may prefer to
do his fighting talk behind Dáil Privilege when
it comes to answering questions on the
conduct of Fianna Fáil representatives and
party ocials, like their own treasurer.
But on his own party’s financial operations
and their day-to-day transactions, the
privilege is not available to him or his
organisation. Or to other leaders and their
parties.
Note: Currently available at the end of a search
across all the main party websites are:
•
Sinn Féin: last set “26 Counties”, Year Ending
2014.
•
Social Democrats, full annual report including
audited financial statements, Year Ending 2019.
Nothing from the rest.
