THE CHAIRMAN of the Dáil’s public spending watchdog has told the State agency that paid for flights for 52 spouses of employees on a single trip abroad to identify itself, or else be identified by his committee.
Public Accounts Committee chairman Bernard Allen (FG) said that if the agency – one of 20 which responded to a survey by the Comptroller and Auditor General on foreign travel – did not publicly explain the basis for the trip, he would ask the committee to write to each agency to ascertain which one facilitated the trip.
Mr Allen said he would bring up the issue as a priority at the PAC meeting tomorrow.
The survey appeared in an appendix to Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley’s value for money report on Fás last week. Mr Buckley’s office conducted a survey of the agencies asking for details of foreign travel undertaken during 2007 and 2008. One agency responded that 52 spouses had travelled abroad on an official spouse’s programme organised by that agency.
Mr Buckley’s office would not disclose the identity of the agency on the basis that the survey was confidential, with no published details of the specifics of travel. It is understood that all 20 agencies have been contacted in the interim and none has said that it organised such a trip. However, a spokeswoman for Mr Buckley’s office said yesterday the report reflected the survey’s results.
The organisations involved are: the IDA; Forfás; Teagasc; Enterprise Ireland; Bord na gCon; Tourism Ireland; ESRI; the Central Bank; Beaumont Hospital; Horse Racing Ireland; Fáilte Ireland; Údarás na Gaeltachta; Irish Blood Transfusion Service; Institute of Public Administration; Ordnance Survey Ireland; Dublin Institute of Technology; the Irish Sports Council; Science Foundation Ireland, Shannon Development and the National Treasury Management Agency.
Mr Allen’s Fine Gael colleague Leo Varadkar said yesterday it was incumbent on the body that organised the trip to identify itself.
“Whoever it is should come clean because we will flush them out,” he said.
Some of the larger bodies contacted by The Irish Times yesterday, including the Dublin Institute of Technology and the Central Bank, categorically stated that no such trip was undertaken under their auspices. The IDA issued a statement yesterday in which it explicitly stated that it is not the State agency involved.
“Furthermore, IDA Ireland’s travel policy is not to fund spouses’ travel, except where executives and their families are requested to take up positions overseas in fulfilment of our national mandate to generate foreign direct investment for Ireland,” it said.