The spokesman for Seymour Sweeney’s firm, Seaport, states that the letter the Belfast Telegraph’s David Gordon has unearthed was “issued after [they] were notified by the minister’s office that an announcement was going to be made.” But the 4-page letter, detailing the five year history of Mr Sweeney’s planning application for a visitor’s centre at the Giants Causeway, arguing for a prompt decision and contending that the minister has the power to over-rule advisers, was sent and received on 10th September – the same day the Environment Minister, Arlene Foster, announced she was “of a mind to approve” the application, and the same day her party colleague, Enterprise Minister Nigel Dodds, suspended the funding of a publicly-owned alternative. Also from the Belfast Telegraph report
A DoE spokesperson yesterday said: “The minister did not have sight of the correspondence from Carson McDowell Solicitors dated September 10, 2007 prior to making her announcement.”
But did she mention, or should she have mentioned, that particular letter to the Assembly’s Environment Committee on the 20th September when it was reported
Ms Foster told a Stormont committee today that she had received no communication from anybody either supporting or opposing the application.
More plausible deniability and/or implausible ignorance..?
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