Council to feature on RTÉ Investigates Ireland's Local Authorities

The investigation at Cavan County Council has been previously reported by The Anglo-Celt since it first emerged in 2017

Published: Wed 23 Mar 2022, 4:55 PM

Last updated: Wed 23 Mar 2022, 5:08 PM

Cavan County Council says it “will not be commenting on this matter at this time” on any issues that might arise from an RTÉ Investigates programme to be aired later this evening, 9.35pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player.

RTÉ Investigates has spent the last six months examining how local authorities go about their business, where it is claimed they've “uncovered systemic failures, which enabled false accounting and employee fraud.”

Broadcast tonight, RTÉ Investigates: Council Chamber Secrets looks at how reforms promised after the tribunals of inquiry never materialised. This includes why a law introduced to allow inquiries into Council’s cannot be used because 20-years on no Minister has signed the necessary order, and how public standards legislation ran aground in an Oireachtas Committee.

Cavan County Council will feature, where the local authority has thus far “refused to release an internal inquiry report into the generation of false invoices citing a Garda investigation, which An Garda Síochána said it was not aware of.”

The same story has been featured in The Anglo-Celt as far back as 2017 HERE.

John Devitt, CEO Transparency International said ahead of tonight's programme: “Turkeys don't vote for Christmas, and politicians are not inclined to want more meaningful or thorough oversight of them or to disclose more of their financial interests. It's called local government, but it doesn't mean that it's any less important than national government. For that reason, public have to have confidence that it's being managed and overseen as it ought to be.”

A spokesperson for Cavan County Council said that the local authority “will not be commenting on this matter at this time”.