IT WAS clear that some person or group benefitted enormously from a £710,000 fraud at a Goodman controlled beef plant, Judge Gerard Buchanan said at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court yesterday.
He told three executives of the Shannon Meat plant in Rathkeale, Co Limerick, they had not assisted in naming this person or persons. Until these people are brought before the court, the case cannot be closed and the public at large must continue to suffer."
The fraud came to light with the discovery of a "little" green diary during a Garda raid. The diary detailed that superior quality intervention meat was trimmed off daily and substituted with animal hearts and other inferior beef from Goodman plants on what was known as the "Russian Contract".
This was a contract for the former Soviet Union in which only top quality intervention beef was stipulated to be used. The destination of the top quality meat has never been discovered, the court was told.
Judge Buchanan imposed suspended sentences on the three executives who had pleaded guilty to conspiring with a person or persons unknown to defraud the Minister for Agriculture and Food in 1991.
They are Sean Hartnett (40), of Castlematrik, Rathkeale; Denis Murphy (41), both of the Hill Abbeyfeale, Co Limerick; and Matthew O'Doherty (45), of Shannon Lawn, North Circular Road, Limerick.
Judge Buchanan imposed a five year suspended sentence on O'Doherty; a three year suspended term on Murphy; and a 12 month suspended term on Hartnett. He ordered them to pay a total of £32,000 compensation to the Minister of Finance over the next five years or face their jail terms in default. O'Doherty was ordered to pay £15,000, Murphy £12,000 and Hartnett £5,000.
Judge Buchanan asked the prosecution to pass on to the Director of Public Prosecutions the court's appreciation of the work of the Garda Bureau of Fraud investigation.
O'Doherty was the general manager at the Shannon Meat cannery, Murphy the plant accountant and Hartnett the production manager in 1991.
They admitted conspiring together and with a person or persons unknown to defraud the Minister of Agriculture and Food on various dates from July 12th to Oct 20th, 1991, by misappropriating intervention beef delivered to Shannon Meat Rathkeale, by the Department of Agriculture and Food and permitting the use of inferior quality meat in cans of beef exported to the Soviet Union.
Judge Buchanan said despite their titles, they did not appear to be in actual control of the factory. The victims were not just the people of Ireland but included the EU and the former Soviet Union.
While each man made a statement to gardai, none of them had dealt with the ultimate destination of the misappropriated beef. He accepted that the defendants had not personally benefitted but it was clear some one person, persons or group had benefited enormously.
Judge Buchanan said he had been impressed by the quality and quantity of character evidence called on the men's behalf but he had to bear in mind enormous damage had been done to the State.
Det Sgt McCann told prosecution counsel Mr Edward Comyn SC that Shannon Meat tendered for and got 16 contracts from the Department to can intervention beef for export to the Soviet Union. Each contract involved 100 tonnes of intervention beef and the contract ran from July 15th to September 21st, 1991.
On October 15th, 1991, members of the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation and Department officials raided the Rathkeale plant where they seized a huge number of documents.
A green diary kept by the canning clerk was discovered and it showed that even though the contract stipulated that only the intervention beef should be used, animal hearts and inferior meat from other Goodman factories were put in the mix for the cans.
Det Sgt McCann agreed with Mr Comyn the substitution of inferior meat for the intervention beef brought about a Department loss of £3,164.92 a ton.
Det Sgt McCann said it was suspected the misappropriated beef was reboxed and sold on the commercial market. Gardai accepted the defendants did not benefit themselves from the fraud.
The three men were jointly defended by Mr Patrick MacEntee SC, Mr Patrick Gageby SC and Mr Stephen McCann who called a number of character witnesses for each man.
Said Mr MacEntee: "This case arose out of an ethos which had crept into the industry, an ethos which had arisen from slip shod practices and from corner cutting by those who supervised the industry.