On Monday, December 7th, RTÉ will broadcast a special RTÉ Investigates documentary that will examine the adherence of public representatives to ethics legislation.
Every year, to ensure transparency, every elected politician in Ireland are required to complete a declaration of interests, listing what they own and their sources of income.
RTÉ Investigates gathered every single declaration of interest for each elected politician for 2014 and cross-checked them against official records They compiled a database that has allowed hundreds of thousands of company registration and property title records to be probed to see if politicians had declared all their interests.
The programme will reveal the extent and nature of breaches across the political system.
As a result of RTÉ’s investigation, a number of politicians at both council and Oireachtas level have already corrected the record.
The programme also focuses on particular cases where evidence of direct conflicts of interest has been found.
Given the scale and, in some cases, the severity of non-declarations, the investigation narrowed to concentrate on a select number of councillors. An RTÉ undercover investigative reporter contacted these people. The programme will broadcast footage from these meetings and will reveal requests for personal rewards to carry out work as a public representative.
RTÉ last week launched their Christmas schedule as well as plans for 2016 which can be seen here.
