THE DEPARTMENT of Health did not attach any terms or conditions setting out how a €2.3 million fund paid to trade union Siptu over several years should be spent.
This money was subsequently used to fund at least 31 overseas trips involving senior civil servants and trade union officials to destinations such as the US, Australia and Hong Kong.
Concerns over the fund’s lack of proper accounting were first raised by auditors in the Health Service Executive. The department’s money was channelled through the HSE to Siptu.
In a document prepared by the HSE following a series of questions from Siptu last week, the health authority stated that it was unable to find any terms or conditions which applied to the money that was paid to the union.
The HSE has made a formal complaint to gardaí in relation to the use of the fund on the basis that large sums of public money cannot be accounted for.
The fund, which has now been suspended pending separate investigations by gardaí and the comptroller and auditor general, was issued annually by the Department of Health to Siptu to upgrade the skill levels of lower-ranking staff such as porters and caterers.
Separately, the HSE’s unpublished internal audit is understood to have found that there were no financial records for travel or hotel costs for the overseas trips.
Auditors were unable to find itineraries of any of the 31 “study visits” or the names of officials who took part in the trips when they examined the minutes of the steering group which administered the fund.
The Department of Health, the Department of Finance and the HSE have confirmed that a number of their officials attended these trips. Siptu officials also attended them. Well-placed sources have said that officials from at least one other trade union also attended some of these overseas trips.
The Unite union confirmed last night that none of its members attended any of these trips.
The Impact trade union has declined to say since last Wednesday whether any of its officials were on these overseas visits.
A Siptu official, meanwhile, is the subject of an internal investigation into the matter.