The controversial issue of alleged planning irregularities at Wexford County Council is to be raised in the Dail this week.

Aontú Cllr. Jim Codd, who is likely to be a candidate in the forthcoming bye-election in Wexford, has confirmed that party leader, Peadar Tobin TD, is to raise the issue against a backdrop of continuing rumours linking the development of sites for the location of state departments in Wexford town to irregularities.

Cllr Codd claims that documents may be produced that could prove on-going rumours about the development at Anne St, Wexford, home to two local branches of State Departments. 

Cllr Codd, who was elected to the Rosslare Municipal District Council on his first attempt at standing for local government last May, claims that he was rounded on by some Council colleagues when he raised the issue at the last meeting of the local authority, leading him to question if the issue is too “hot for them to handle.”

“When the media left that meeting, all hell broke loose; some of my colleagues went for me in a way that makes me wonder what do they have to hide? Now I’m a big boy and I won’t be bullied or cowed and I won’t shut up, and frankly the more they attack me, the more I am going to dig; some may want this buried but I will do all in my power to get to the bottom of it.”

Cllr Codd is demanding that all documents pertaining to these allegations and to the acquisition of these sites be made public immediately. “As it stands, these rumours are not going to go away and cast a shadow over our local government as an organisation, and over past members who, through incompetence or for more complicated reasons, have allowed this issue to remain a secret for nearly two decades,” he claimed in a statement issued to the press this week.

“Deputy Tobin is to raise the issue in the Dail this week and hopefully that will concentrate minds. We are insisting on a new Council report on the whole affair,” concluded Cllr Codd.

The matter is under investigation by the OPW and the Chief Solicitors Office.