MORE THAN €5 million was paid into a controversial bank account used to finance foreign trips for public officials and trade union figures, according to a report published today.
The Dáil Public Accounts Committee will today consider this report as well as a number of other examinations into how millions of euro of State funding ended up in the account that was controlled by two individuals associated with the trade union Siptu.
The report, by the Department of Health and the Health Service Executive, maintains that, at €5.057 million, the known receipts paid into the account – the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy fund – were significantly higher than previously known.
The report also identified more than 40 foreign trips undertaken by civil and public servants, trade union officials and others that were funded by the Siptu “levy” account – again more than previously understood to be the case.
A separate HSE internal audit report, also to be considered by the Public Accounts Committee today, strongly criticises breaches of procedures under which nearly €1 million was paid by the Health Service National Partnership Forum into the same Siptu levy account.
It says that in effect the forum has been unable to account for the disbursement of €770,000 of taxpayers’ funds to Siptu.
Siptu corporately has said the “levy” account was an unofficial one.
The Dáil committee was told last year that the account was controlled by a senior Siptu official, Matt Merrigan, and a former national executive member, Jack Kelly.
The Department of Health-HSE report also indicates that its assessment of the amount paid into the account may not be the total sum involved.
It says that because full details of transactions are unavailable it is possible there may have been other sources of income to the account from late 1998 to 2001.
A spokesman for Siptu last night said that the only funds in the account the union could account for was €4.4 million, as set out in its own report on the issue earlier this year.
