Committee under fire for blocking pay-out probe

AN Oireachtas committee should not have blocked an investigation into the state’s refusal to pay compensation to a family whose father and son died at sea, the Ombudsman has indicated.

Last December, the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly, laid a special report before the Oireachtas on the Department of Agriculture’s refusal to pay compensation of €245,570 to the family of Francis Byrne.

Mr Byrne, his 16-year-old son Jimmy and three other crew died when the family’s fishing boat sank in a storm off Donegal in 1981.