The public ethics watchdog is to investigate whether a civil servant broke ethics rules by failing to tell county councillors they were buying a property he owned.

Tim Caffrey, the CEO of Longford County Council, will face a hearing next week over the sale of his house to a housing association in 2013.

In 2013 the house was sold to the Muiriosa Foundation, using a grant obtained by the council from the Department of the Environment.

The council claimed at the time that it was not involved in choosing the house in the village of Cloondara.