Breen should address Dáil – FG must come clean on McCourt meetings
Labour Dáil Communications spokesperson Séan Sherlock has called on Minister of State Pat Breen to make a statement to the Dáil outlining the purpose and content of his meetings with David McCourt following further reports of meetings in the Irish Mail on Sunday, and Sunday Business Post.
Labour raised the possibility of Minister of State Breen making a Dáil statement at last Thursday’s Business Committee meeting, and will pursue it further next week.
Deputy Sherlock said:
“There is a drip-feed of revelations about the meetings between both the former Minister for Communications with David McCourt, but also the many meetings that have taken place with Minister of State Pat Breen.
“The Mail on Sunday yesterday revealed that Minister Breen met with Mr McCourt for breakfast before the bidder went on to meet the Minister for Communications in 2016.
“The Sunday Business Post also revealed there were three previously unreported meetings, with visits on several occasions to the bidder’s home in a ‘private capacity’.
“It is now necessary for the Minister of State to make a clear statement to the Dáil, outlining the purposes of all these meetings, and the topics of discussions. It is simply not believable that the National Broadband Plan would not have come up at all considering it is a major state contract that Mr McCourt is leading the bid on.
“It is time for Fine Gael to come clean on all the meetings that have taken place with the lead bidder on the tender.
“The Labour Party raised at Thursday’s Business Committee the possibility of the Minister making a statement to the Dáil on the matter. Following Sunday’s revelations, the Minister must now clarify the many meetings and the nature of the discussions at them.”