TRADE UNION Siptu has said all public funds remaining in the bank account at the centre of the Skill training scheme controversy will be handed over to the exchequer.
More than €4 million from various State sources has been paid into the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund, which was operated by one of its officials and a long-standing member.
Siptu has said it knew nothing about the account and took control of it only in August.
The account has been the focus of controversy since it emerged that the Health Service Executive (HSE) paid €2.3 million into it in funding for the Skill training programme for staff in the health service.
The programme funded foreign trips for civil servants, HSE officials, trade unionists and others and a number of investigations are taking place into how the monies were managed and spent.
The Dáil public accounts committee yesterday called for the Siptu bank account to be frozen and for any public funds in the account to be returned to the exchequer once inquiries into it were completed.
However, Siptu president Jack O’Connor last night said the bank account was frozen when the union took control of it in August. “It goes without saying that any public funds in the account should and will be returned to the exchequer,” he said.
Mr O’Connor said that this was in addition to the commitment the union gave last week that it would “find a way of addressing” the issue of more than €340,000 in expenses reimbursed by the HSE to a union official if it was found they had not been properly vouched.
Mr O’Connor declined to say how much remained in the bank account. He said this information was privileged until the outcome of an inquiry being carried out by Siptu’s trustees was known. Mr O’Connor also said the union would appear before the public accounts committee if invited to do so.
At a meeting yesterday, the committee said it would invite six individuals, named at a previous hearing into the controversy, to give evidence. It said letters would be sent to retired general manager of Skill Alan Smith, trustees of the bank account Matt Merrigan and Jack Kelly, chairman of the Skill steering group Bill Atlee; retired finance official Tom Dowling and retired Department of Health official Frank Ahern.
Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Department of Finance has challenged aspects of the report drawn up by the HSE on foreign trips.
The department said in a letter to the committee that its records show one of its officials had been “keyed in” to its offices in Dublin at a time when the HSE document suggested he was taking part in trips to the US in 2005, 2006 and 2007.