A CIVIL SERVANT in the office of Public Works has gone missing after the discovery of a £177,000 fraud. The fraud involved payments of rents for buildings leased by the State.
An investigation by the OPW and the Garda Fraud Squad found five instances of irregular payments, of sums totalling almost £177,000. Files on these cases have gone missing from the OPW, and the authorities have failed to trace the civil servant involved, who went missing in 1994.
The fraud involved payments of rent by the State to companies which were not entitled to it. The rent was for properties where the ownership was uncertain the original landlord had died and the properties were in probate.
According to the report, the total value of suspect payments was £176,805 between 1984 and 1995. In October 1995 irregularities were discovered in the payment of rent for a property in Co Tipperary. It was discovered that the rent on the property had been paid since 1986 to a firm with a Dublin address.
Payments on a Co Galway property were being made to the same firm.
Three other cases were uncovered later, and is understood that all five have been linked to the missing civil servant.
The report says accountants investigated other rent payments and "no evidence was found to suggest that the suspected irregularities went beyond the five cases already identified."