Ethics in Public Office
Dail Éireann — 2026-05-28
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Cian O'Callaghan (SD), Dublin Bay North

With respect, the Minister has talked a lot about the need to speed up the delivery of critical infrastructure, which I support. Yet here he is, giving an answer about how he is slowing down this process. The statutory review was completed almost four years ago, and the heads of Bill were promised by the Minister’s predecessor, Paschal Donohoe, as almost ready in May two years ago.
These processes were substantially concluded four years ago but now the Minister is saying that we need to do more. Meanwhile, the Government is setting up more public bodies year after year and the number of such bodies that escape the SIPO requirements under legislation grows year after year. We now have 49 public bodies not covered by SIPO because of the inaction of the Minister and his predecessors. It is growing year by year and that is not acceptable. Every year SIPO publishes a report saying that it needs stronger powers. The substantive work on this was completed four years ago. When are we actually going to see the heads of a Bill? When is this going to come into force or is the Minister just going to slow this down and delay it further? That is what is happening now.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-05-28/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-09-21T01:01:08+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-28