Education: A former senior official in the Department of Education has returned more than €29,000 after he received an overpayment regarding holiday pay.
The civil servant, who retired from the department in 2005, received a gross overpayment of €53,000 in lieu of 120 leave days accumulated since 1994, according to the comptroller's report. The net overpayment worked out at €29,570. The official offered to repay it immediately once the error was identified, according to the report.
The overpayments were made because of a failure to comply with a Department of Finance circular on such payments. The report says: "If the circular provisions had been implemented he would have been paid for 37 days, not 120."
The report says the mistake came to light in the course of a payroll audit. The comptroller says he asked for further information from the department because he was "concerned that some of the untaken leave for which payment was made in this instance breached the regulations on carry-over set by the Department of Finance".
In response, the department said the official was unaware that this payment was not consistent with the Department of Finance circulars.
"He had been informed by the department's personnel section at the time of his retirement that he was entitled to be paid for any untaken leave and had been requested to forward details of leave taken so that personnel could make the necessary calculations and arrange payment."
When the matter was brought to his attention recently, he indicated that he wished to repay the amount received.
The department said it had inadvertently breached the Department of Finance guidelines because of pressure of work. As a result of these pressures, the department took the position that staff should not suffer loss of untaken leave.
In total, €392,000 was paid to 64 department officials in the last five years on foot of untaken leave on cessation of employment. About €69,000 of this represented an overpayment.
Payment for untaken leave ranged from as little as a half day to 151 days, with 22 payments exceeding €5,000. Due to pressure of work, the department had also permitted staff to exceed the maximum allowable carry-over of annual leave in 137 instances.
