Three fresh controversies emerge

THREE fresh controversies emerged yesterday surrounding Ivor Callely, the junior minister who resigned yesterday morning.

The Dublin North Central Deputy was involved in a dispute with Cork County Council over a garage extension at his holiday home in West Cork.

The Council found that Mr Callely had been in breach of planning permission when he converted the large garage at the home near the Sheep’s Head peninsula into residential accommodation.

Following a long-running battle with council planning officials during the 1990s, Mr Callely was granted permission to construct the garage in 1997. However, this time last year Mr Callely sought permission to retain the extension for residential and not storage use.

In addition, information obtained by the Irish Examiner under the Freedom of Information Act, also showed that the costs of publicity photos for Mr Callely when he was in the Dept of Health amounted to over €13,000 in 2004, three times higher than those of his then senior minister, Mícheál Martin.

And it also emerged that Mr Callely’s wife was ordered by the District Court in 1996 to pay an interior decorator £3,000 for work carried out in the family’s Clontarf home.

Dublin District Civil Court ruled in 1996 that Barmeen Interiors of Dartry in Dublin was entitled to be paid for services it supplied to the Callelys.