LAST UPDATE | 31 Aug 2022

HEALTH MINISTER STEPHEN Donnelly has said that he failed to register a property he rented with the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB) until last week.

The long-term tenancy, which was first registered with the RTB in 2011, was not renewed in 2019, with a spokesperson for Donnelly saying that it was “due to an oversight”.

As first reported by the Irish Times, the property has since been registered with the RTB.

The property itself is an apartment, located in Sandyford in South Dublin.

In a statement, the spokesperson said:

“The Minister has a property with a long-standing tenancy. That tenancy was registered and renewed with the RTB on a number of occasions (2011 and 2015) and is currently registered.”

“Due to an oversight, the tenancy registration was not renewed in 2019 when it should have been. The RTB indicated that this should be backdated online, which was done last week.

“The Minister’s interests have been fully declared every year on the Dáil register of members interests.”

The Taoiseach has also backed Donnelly this evening. 

A spokesperson for Micheál Martin said: “The Minister has explained his oversight in renewing a long term tenancy with the RTB in 2019, and that his Member’s Interests have been declared in full every year during that period.”

The revelations come a week after former Minister for Trade Promotion Robert Troy resigned following multiple omissions in property registrations.

Troy had failed to register a property in Ballynacargy in Co Westmeath with the RTB and said that he would be paying a late fee to the RTB.

More recently, Sinn Féin TD Johnny Guirke was reprimanded by the party after a property he let was not registered with the RTB due to “an error on behalf of the letting agent”.

A spokesperson for Sinn Féin said that it was “not acceptable” that the property was not registered and said that any additional lapses with property registrations would lead to “disciplinary measures”.