The Committee for Public Accounts is to ask the Garda Commissioner to investigate whether crimes were committed in the cases of five county councils which claimed money from the National Roads Authority for work which had not been done.
The committee heard yesterday that Cork, Tipperary North and South, Donegal and Sligo County Councils had between them claimed at least £3.5 million in funds over different periods for projects that had not been carried out at the time.
In the case of Cork, which accounted for £2.47 million of the total, false invoices were provided by contractors to accompany the claims. This had also occurred in Tipperary North, while it remained to be established in the other cases. The other falsely claimed amounts - revealed in an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General - were: Tipperary South Riding, £480,000; Tipperary North, £254,000; Sligo, between £100,000 and £600,000; and Donegal, £87,000.
The chief executive of the NRA, Mr Michael Tobin, who confirmed the money had been returned by the councils, said the NRA paid out on the basis of trust in senior officials and could not check all claims. However, the chairman of the CPA, Mr Jim Mitchell, said the controls appeared to have been very lax.
In the cases of Cork and Tipperary North, the claims occurred in 1993-94 and 1997, respectively, and had been discussed at earlier meetings of the CPA. The other cases are more recent and were revealed to the committee for the first time yesterday. In all cases, the works involved were planned, but the funds were claimed in advance of requirements.
The secretary general of the Department of the Environment, Mr Jimmy Farrelly, confirmed that new procedures had been put in place since the first cases came to light, but in answer to questions, said no officials had been sacked because of the claims.
Mr Mitchell said the committee was "sick and tired" of the fact that wrongdoing in the civil service was never punished: "If this happened anywhere else, people would be sacked." He said the committee would be asking the Garda Commissioner to examine the files with a view to establishing whether any crime had been committed.
Yesterday's meeting was also addressed by the secretary general of the Department of Finance, Mr Paddy Mullarkey, who told the committee the Department was considering setting up a "future needs contingency fund" from the State's ongoing balance of payments surpluses.
Mr Mullarkey said that within the next 20 years, Ireland could expect to have negative debt. However, at around the same time, the State would also be facing hugely increased pension costs, and it was with this in mind that a contingency fund needed to be established.
