{"id":366993,"date":"2026-03-26T23:18:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T23:18:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366993\/"},"modified":"2026-03-26T23:18:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T23:18:10","slug":"serious-allegations-over-former-taoiseach-putting-pressure-on-fisheries-agency-pac-hears-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/366993\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Serious allegations\u2019 over former taoiseach putting pressure on fisheries agency, PAC hears \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are \u201cserious allegations\u201d that a former taoiseach put pressure on State agency Inland Fisheries Ireland<\/a> (IFI), the chairman of the D\u00e1il Public Accounts Committee<\/a> has said.<\/p>\n

Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a> TD John Brady<\/a> told a hearing on Thursday it had also been reported how a former chief executive of IFI was \u201cblackmailed\u201d by a serving senator to stop a fraud investigation.<\/p>\n

He asked IFI chairman Prof Tom Collins whether he knew if such allegations were set out in protected disclosures to the agency. <\/p>\n

Collins said if he was being asked whether he had received an allegation in a formal way from anybody in the organisation that someone was being blackmailed, then \u201cabsolutely not\u201d.<\/p>\n

Brady asked whether any protected disclosures had been made to IFI citing concerns around political interference or allegations of blackmail.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can say that such an investigation report never came to the board of IFI,\u201d Collins said.<\/p>\n

Brady then asked if this meant there \u201cwere no protected disclosures\u201d.<\/p>\n

Collins said: \u201cI am not saying that. I only see protected disclosures, if I see them at all, once they have been investigated. I have never received on the board an investigation report that states that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Oonagh Buckley, secretary general of the Department of Climate, Energy and the Environment<\/a>, the parent department of IFI, said four live protected disclosures regarding the agency were under investigation and she was not allowed to disclose the contents. <\/p>\n

Brady asked whether he could take from that comment that such possible protected disclosures were still live, but Buckley said she could neither confirm or deny this. <\/p>\n

Details of blackmail allegations against a senator<\/a> were made several weeks ago during a Workplace Relations Commission<\/a> (WRC) hearing regarding an employment dispute brought by former IFI chief executive Francis O\u2019Donnell<\/a>. The senator was not identified. <\/p>\n

There was no public allegation made during the three-day WRC hearing about political interference at the agency by a former taoiseach. Further hearings of the WRC case are due to take place in June.<\/p>\n

Brady did not provide details regarding any allegations against a former taoiseach at Thursday\u2019s committee meeting, nor was any individual identified.<\/p>\n

The committee heard how IFI last June paid up the remaining five months on the contract of the former chief executive at a cost of \u20ac145,000. <\/p>\n

Brady asked whether the former chief executive had at any point been asked to withdraw protected disclosures he had made. <\/p>\n

Collins said: \u201cCategorically, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brady asked whether any condition had been attached to any proposed severance agreement that protected disclosures would be withdrawn.<\/p>\n

Collins said: \u201cFrom memory, no.\u201d<\/p>\n

He said what had been presented to the chief executive \u2013 who declined to sign the deal \u2013 was a proposal that would be in full and final settlement.<\/p>\n

Brady read from a document that stated a condition had been proposed that the individual concerned would confirm he \u201cknows of no facts which give rise to a protected disclosure in relation to the employer or to any current or former employee, officer or director of the employer and that any protected disclosures raised by him in relation to such parties are hereby discharged\u201d.<\/p>\n

Collins said he was not disputing the document, but said the proposal was for full and final settlement and never suggested the chief executive was blocked from making further disclosures after signing the agreement.<\/p>\n

Brady said: \u201cI find it deeply concerning that, in a settlement arrangement that was being put, IFI had as a condition that protected disclosures would be withdrawn.\u201d<\/p>\n

Separately, the committee heard how two IFI employees received about \u20ac8,000 in payments from the Marine Institute for retrieving, from salmon, tags that provided details about survival at sea. <\/p>\n

Under the scheme, those who retrieved a tag could receive a bounty of \u20ac10.<\/p>\n

IFI deputy chief executive Barry Fox said an investigation, established on foot of a protected disclosure, upheld allegations that people within the organisation had received payments, but found no evidence of wrongdoing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are \u201cserious allegations\u201d that a former taoiseach put pressure on State agency Inland Fisheries Ireland (IFI), the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70447,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[118632,42,10914,47679,43,12467,3415,40,38,41,39,6465],"class_list":["post-366993","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-department-of-climate-energy-and-the-environment","tag-headlines","tag-inland-fisheries-ireland","tag-john-brady","tag-news","tag-public-accounts-committee","tag-sinn-fein","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-workplace-relations-commission"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366993","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366993"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366993\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70447"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366993"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366993"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366993"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}