The chairman of an Employment Appeals Tribunal yesterday questioned the Department of Justice's monitoring of £750,000 in funding to a voluntary body.
The State money was handed over to the Irish Council for People with Disabilities (ICPD) to cover its operational costs in 1998.
"I'm only a lay person and anybody with half a wit would know you don't throw money at an organisation and expect it to develop on good lines. It's never happened in history," the chairman, Mr Peter O'Leary, said.
He made the remark during his cross-examination of a senior Department of Justice official who was giving evidence in an appeal by a former administrator of the ICPD against a decision by the organisation to make her redundant at the end of July last.
The former administrator, Ms Ann Kennedy, of Cherrywood Park, Clondalkin, Co Dublin, is taking an action against the ICPD under the Payment of Wages and Unfair Dismissals Acts.
The Department of Justice official, Mr Mairtin de Burca, stated that he was responsible for handing out funding to the organisation but decisions on how the money was spent were a matter for the ICPD itself.
He said instructions were given on the salaries to be paid to staff and in the case of Ms Kennedy these were breached. Her salary was just over £26,000 but in January 1998 it was increased to £34,407. It was also claimed when the case opened in October that she received £500 a month for nearly two years in "under-the-counter payments".
A former chief executive of the ICPD, Mr David Lonergan, told the tribunal on Thursday he could find no written authorisation for paying her this extra money and untaxed expenses.
Yesterday Mr de Burca said the ICPD was formed in March 1997 and by mid-1998 he became "quite concerned" at the direction in which it was going. The "irregularities" in relation to salary were brought to his attention by Mr Lonergan in June of that year.
It became apparent there was an enormous amount of friction within the organisation, he said. Staff were unhappy and demoralised and many left. Following a report by management consultants, the Minister for Justice appointed a steering committee to oversee its activities.
Ms Kennedy was on sick leave and while she was away from work she was written to and told the organisation no longer required an administrator and that her functions would be absorbed by other staff.
The ICPD claimed she was on a two-year contract but the tribunal chairman ruled that it was not a fixed-term contract. He was also told there had never been any complaints about her work.
When Mr de Burca was presented with the organisation's accounts he said he was "absolutely flabbergasted" at the amount of money some people were getting in travel and subsistence.
The tribunal chairman asked who was acting as watchdog over the organisation. "We are talking about three-quarters of a million pounds of State money. It's handed over to people who seem to be split up into factions and one element, the major element, isn't being told of what's going on and you don't know, although you're handing over the money," he said.
Mr de Burca said the system worked satisfactorily in the early days and factions weren't apparent until later. He added that at all stages officers of the board of the ICPD liaised with the Department. The hearing resumes on February 8th.