Ordnance Survey condemned for awarding €30k in bonuses

Ordnance Survey Ireland has been strongly condemned over its decision to award bonuses worth €30,000 to four individuals in 2011, despite a Government ban on such payments.

The Dáil Public Accounts Committee heard yesterday that the OSI — best-known for producing detailed maps of Ireland — also paid out the annual fee of €7,965 to an OSI board member in 2011, despite the fact that he attended only one of 10 board meetings that year.

The OSI was further criticised for spending €61,000 in legal fees over its recoupment of an overpayment to its former chief executive, Geraldine Ruane.

PAC chairman John McGuinness accused the OSI board of blatantly ignoring legislation banning bonus payments.

“What made you different from everybody else,” Mr McGuinness said. He claimed the OSI was asking taxpayers to park legislation to pay a few staff when “the whole country was making efforts to keep things on track”.

OSI current chief executive Colin Bray said a bonus of €20,000 was a contractual performance payment to a marketing specialist, while three OSI staff were paid a total of €10,000 in bonuses in recognition of their role in “change management issues”.

Mr Bray admitted that the minister for communications, Pat Rabbitte, was not informed at the time of the OSI board’s decision to award the bonuses.

He stated the OSI believed its board approval for such payments was sufficient.

Fine Gael TD, Paul Connaughton, expressed amazement at how the OSI had overruled national policy on bonus payments.

He also questioned why the OSI was still seeking retrospective sanction from Mr Rabbitte for the bonus payments, especially as such approval was only sought for the first time last month — almost two years after the bonuses had been paid.

Mr Connaughton expressed dis-satisfaction with Mr Bray’s response that the OSI had been involved “in constant discussions” on the issue.

Meanwhile, the PAC chairman said it was incredible that Mr Bray could not provide an answer as to why a former OSI board member had been paid the full fee of €7,965 in 2011, despite only attending one of 10 board meetings.

It is understood the individual is Liam O’Farrell, who is no longer a member of the OSI board.

Mr Bray said it was a decision of the former OSI chairman, Kevin Bonner. However, he was unaware of the basis for making such a payment given the low attendance figure at board meetings.