Hotelier denies ethics breach

A TOP hotelier last night denied he had done anything wrong, after a decision by the Standards in Public Office Commission to refer a report to the DPP arising from a probe into a zoning controversy concerning his family’s property.

Patrick O’Donoghue, managing director of the Gleneagle Hotel, Killarney, and a Fianna Fáil town councillor, was the subject of an ethics investigation along with Killarney mayor Sheila Casey, Fine Gael.

The commission’s report, due out today, follows a probe into alleged breaches of ethics by the two councillors in attempts to rezone lands at the Gleneagle Hotel, owned by Mr O’Donoghue’s family.