by Colman
Sat Mar 14th, 2009 at 04:49:55 AM EST
The Irish Standards in Public Office commission reported today that Libertas failed to co-operate with their report on the running of the Lisbon referendum, according to the Irish Times:
In September Mr Ganley disclosed that he gave a personal loan of €200,000 to help fund the Libertas campaign against the Lisbon treaty.
The Standards Commission wrote to Libertas on June 19th, 2008 seeking details of any loans provided to it from a financial institution or other person for the purposes of funding its referendum campaign.
Mr Ganley replied August 13th confirming that Libertas had received a personal loan from him "in respect of which a detailed legal agreement and repayment plan in accordance with commercial lending norms" had been agreed. Sipo wrote again to Mr Ganley on August 22nd and requested a copy of the legal agreement and repayment plan for the loan. “In spite of subsequent correspondence with Mr Ganley and his legal representatives, the information requested by the Standards Commission has not been provided by Libertas at the time of writing this report,” the report said.
Sipo said it had engaged in further correspondence with Libertas on the suggestion that employees of Mr Ganley’s Rivada Networks Ltd may have been paid by that company while working for Libertas on its referendum campaign. Libertas confirmed that Rivada employees "who worked on the Libertas project did so in their spare time and on a voluntary basis”, the report found but the group had failed to provide further details sought in a letter writing by Sipo last September.
Unfortunately, it seems that third parties are not currently required by law to co-operate with SIPO. I rather expect that to be changed shortly.
Part of our continuing coverage of the 2009 European elections
