Health Minister Stephen Donnelly has admitted driving a car which was last taxed eight months ago.
It is an offence under the Road Traffic Act 1994 to drive an untaxed car.
Mr Donnelly told the Irish Mirror it was an oversight which has now been rectified.
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He was responding to the Mirror after a story claiming that a car had not been taxed since 2022, appeared on The Ditch news website.
Mr Donnelly admitted that he had driven the untaxed car as recently as last week when asked.
He said: “Yes, absolutely, I didn’t see that it was the situation. But once I was made aware of the situation, that was rectified.”
When asked if it had remained untaxed for eight months, since September 2022, he confirmed this, saying: “Yes.”
The car Mr Donnelly was seen driving untaxed last week is a hybrid Toyota Prius.
This is the second time in recent months that The Ditch has published articles about Mr Donnelly.
Again, on The Ditch website, it was reported that a property he owned had not been registered with the RTB (Residential Tenancies Board)
This is an offence under the Residential Tenancies Act 2004.
A spokesman for Mr Donnelly said the “oversight” was rectified last September.
He added: ““That tenancy was registered and renewed with the RTB on a number of occasions (2011 and 2015) and is currently registered,” he added.
“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.”
It is an offence to fail to register a tenancy with the RTB within one month of the tenancy commencing.
The blunder came to light just a week after another Fianna Fáil TD, Robert Troy, had to resign as a junior minister.
Mr Troy left the role after admitting to a number of errors in declaring properties on the Dáil’s register of interests.
Mr Troy amended his declarations on the Dail Register of Members’ Interests, but he is now a mere backbench TD for the party after having to step down from his ministerial role.
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