THE OFFICE of the Comptroller and Auditor General (C&AG) yesterday amended a mistake in its latest special report which stated that an unnamed State agency, now known to be the Central Bank, had funded a single foreign trip for 52 spouses of its employees.
In a statement issued yesterday, the office of the C&AG, John Buckley, accepted that the 52 trips involving spouses had happened over a two-year period and not in a single trip.
The Central Bank confirmed last night that it was the organisation in question. It also criticised the C&AG’s office for the mistake, asserting that it “clearly misinterpreted” one of the Central Bank’s responses to a questionnaire sent to it and another 19 State organisations.
In its statement, clearly ascribing responsibility for the mistake to Mr Buckley’s office, the Central Bank also said the C&AG’s office had “published this information without checking the accuracy of their statement”. The C&AG’s office made no mention of a mistake or misinterpretation on its part.
A spokeswoman, when asked, agreed that the issue had arisen because of a misunderstanding of the interpretation of the phrase “official spouses’ programme” used by the Central Bank.
“The agency involved has now clarified that the 52 trips involving spouses were undertaken in connection with a set of international meetings,” the C&AG’s office said in its statement.
“The original information was derived from a survey response which, as indicated in the report, was not subject of independent audit or check,” it added.
The special report into internal control and governance in the State employment agency Fás was published last week.
In an appendix to the report, the C&AG’s office surveyed 20 State organisations to obtain details of foreign travel. In the course of the report, the C&AG stated that the agencies had spent €1.5 million for 4,000 flights for non-staff members of the 20 agencies. It said one agency had responded that “staff members’ spouses had travelled by invitation to an official spouse’s programme”. In a footnote, it stated that this was a single trip for 52 spouses.
While all 20 agencies were named in the report, the C&AG would not disclose which organisation had funded foreign travel for spouses of staff members. All 20 agencies adamantly denied this week that they had funded a single trip involving 52 spouses.
The C&AG’s office contacted the Central Bank yesterday morning to say it was the organisation in question. The bank moved quickly to clarify that it had never funded a single trip for so many spouses.
Public Accounts Committee chairman Bernard Allen (Fine Gael) said that notwithstanding the mistake, the committee would question the Central Bank on the seemingly high number of trips for spouses.
“The PAC will be discussing banking issues in April and the issue will come up,” he said last night. “The figure of 52 trips, even over two years, seems high to me. It behoves the Central Bank to make a clear statement on the issue.”
A spokesman for the bank said last night that its foreign travel for non-staff members was well below the average of agencies surveyed.
“The average non-staff flights per agency was 222 and we undertook only about half of that figure.”
He also pointed out that the number of trips involving spouses was a small fraction of the 2,700 flights undertaken by the Central Bank over the past two years.
In its statement, the C&AG also said it intended to use the material provided in the course of the survey as a basis for follow-up inquiries in the course of financial audit work.