IT is to be hoped that Environment Minister John Gormley’s intervention into the controversy surrounding the Lost At Sea scheme will prevent the simmering issue becoming a scandal.
He has supported calls that Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly’s report into the scheme, set up by Frank Fahey when he was a junior minister, to be given full consideration by an Oireachtas Committee.
The Agriculture Committee, voting on party lines, has already voted down a Fine Gael attempt to have a full hearing on the report.
Some of the allegations, and the implications that follow, surrounding this scheme cannot go untested. Let us hope Mr Gormley insists there is a proper inquiry.
a d v e r t i s e m e n t
This appeared in the printed version of the Irish Examiner Wednesday, March 17, 2010
