The Standards in Public Office Commission (Sipo) is to proceed with a full investigation into the failure by former Fianna Fáil minister Robert Troy to declare all his property ownership in annual declarations setting out his interests.
Mr Troy resigned as a minister of State in the Department of Enterprise in August 2022 following a series of media disclosures that he had failed to register all his property interests.
Sipo subsequently appointed an inquiry officer to examine the matter and on the basis of that report, the Commission has decided to proceed with an investigation under Section 23 of the Ethics in Public Office Act 1995 into the omissions.
However, a second line of inquiry into a suggested conflict of interest between Mr Troy’s public statements on the Rental Accommodation Scheme (RAS) and the fact he was receiving RAS payments from some tenants will not proceed into a full investigation.
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Mr Troy’s resignation on August 25th, 2022 came after a week of intense scrutiny of his property interests after the online media outlet, The Ditch, reported he had failed to declare all his properties.
Under mounting pressure, Mr Troy admitted to making errors in his returns over a number of years and also disclosed that he had ownership interests in a total of eleven properties. He claimed at the time that his failure to declare properties was as a result of a misinterpretation of the requirements.
He said he did not realise that properties he had disposed of during the course of a year were still required to be declared even though they did not remain in his ownership at the end of a particular year.
Mr Troy made wide-ranging amendments to the Oireachtas register of members’ interests going back to 2013 and apologised for his omissions.
In a statement on Wednesday, Mr Troy said he welcomed the finding by the Sipo inquiry officer that there was no prima facie evidence to support any conflict of interest arising from his public statements on the RAS scheme during his time as a minister. He also said had noted the decision by the Commission to proceed with the investigation in relation to omissions in his declarations.
“I have already acknowledged that I made an error in this regard based on a flawed interpretation of the legislation,” he said.
“I look forward to co-operating fully and am hopeful that the Commission will conclude its investigation in a timely manner. I won’t be making any further comment.”
Sipo has been contacted for comment.
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