Analysis: Varadkar has to decide whether he sticks to his story to SIPO – or bring heat on his donors
Leo Varadkar has a choice to make by Wednesday.
Leo Varadkar has a choice to make by Wednesday.
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar assured SIPO that he had internal procedures in place to avoid political donations over the legal threshold – despite previously accepting at least two such payments.
SIPO is investigating electronic payments to Leo Varadkar and his explanation as to why he hasn’t declared them in his annual declaration of donations.
SIPO has opened an inquiry into undeclared donations received by taoiseach Leo Varadkar after it emerged he misled the commission during a 2019 probe.
Ex-taoiseach Enda Kenny, ex-jobs minister Richard Bruton and ex-tánaiste Eamon Gilmore took credit for almost 100 bogus jobs, which were to supposedly be delivered by a controversial, discontinued IDA scheme, in one 2013 announcement.
The IDA tried to block the release of the number of jobs created by a much-touted government scheme and tried to argue that publishing the figures would hurt the state.
Housing minister Darragh O’Brien won’t explain why his ministerial mileage claim for August 2022 isn’t supported by his official diary.
Ex-Independent News and Media group-editor-in-chief Stephen Rae last month sent a legal letter to the Oireachtas after, it was claimed in a committee hearing, that he engages in SLAPPs – strategic lawsuits against public participation.
Fianna Fáil minister of state Niall Collins claimed he drove more than 2,000 kilometres for ministerial work in August 2020 – with the country five months into the Covid-19 pandemic and the Dáil on its summer break.
Fianna Fáil junior minister Thomas Byrne has insisted one of his mileage claims is correct – despite his diary only accounting for a fraction of what he claimed.
An international working group, in a report that highlights the importance of western technology to Vladimir Putin’s military, has identified Irish parts in Russian weapons used in the invasion of Ukraine.
Having claimed to have driven more than 8,000 kilometres in three months when the Dáil wasn’t sitting, Fianna Fáil junior minister Seán Fleming has denied submitting inaccurate ministerial driving expenses claims.