Council chief mulls action after Sipo ruling

A senior county council official has threatened to take court action against the State’s ethics watchdog after it found he failed to tell his own local authority it was helping a charity to buy a €259,000 property he owned.

Tim Caffrey, who was found by a Standards in Public Office (Sipo) report yesterday to have breached vital guidelines by not fully disclosing his link to the home, said that he “utterly rejects” the claim he “did not act in good faith” and that the independent body was “not entitled” to draw the conclusion.

In a detailed report published last night, Sipo said the Longford County Council CEO “contravened ethics legislation” when he “failed to disclose” his links to a property that was subsequently purchased by the local authority.