Shock resignation of Minister for Retail Damien English – Neale Richmond takes over the reigns for Irish retailers
Fine Gael junior minister Damien English resigned last wee after it was revealed he gave incorrect information to a local authority when making a planning application to build a house in a rural area.
Mr English was the minister of State at the Department of Enterprise – with responsibility for Irish retail and retailers, seeing the sector through on of its most difficult eras ever.
In a statement on 12th January, Mr English said: “Yesterday in an online article, questions were raised about my planning application from 14 years ago.
“I reviewed this application, made in 2008, and it is clear to me that I failed to inform Meath County Council (MCC) about ownership of my house in Castlemartin.”
The new Minister with responsibility for retail and enterprise is Neale Richmond.
An Irish Fine Gael politician who has been a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin Rathdown constituency since the 2020 general election, he previously served as a Senator for the Labour Panel from 2016 to 2020.
He said he looked forward to “hitting the ground running” in what was “a really important portfolio and a really important department”.
“We have some of the highest employment figures in the state at the moment but we have to maintain that in a very difficult global environment. Secondly, a lot of the work I would have done on the Brexit beat was in terms of preparing businesses particularly retail for the implications of checks in terms of import/export. So those are things I really want to build on in this new role.”
