Enforcer gets 3% budget increase

THE State agency that deals with rogue companies and their bosses has been given a below inflation rise in its budget.

The Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE), which deals with breaches of company law, has been seeking extra funding for extra staff for a number of years to cope with an increasing workload.

But the office will only see its budget increase 3% in 2008, according to Wednesday’s government spending estimates.

The ODCE has been allocated a budget of e4.95 million for 2008, up from e4.82m this year.

Since it was set up in 2001, the office has been successful in securing numerous prosecutions for breaches of company law.

The ODCE is pursuing the restriction of several former executives of National Irish Bank who were found by High Court inspectors to have assisted the bank’s customers to evade tax through the setting up of bogus non-resident deposits as well as fictitious and incorrectly named accounts.

The office is also seeking to have builders Tom and Michael Bailey restricted from acting as company directors.

The millionaires were criticised in the second interim report of the Planning Tribunal, which found that Michael Bailey made a corrupt payment to former Fianna Fáil minister Ray Burke and three corrupt payments to former Dublin City Council official George Redmond.

Their company, Bovale, made the highest-ever settlement with the Revenue Commissioners in 2006 when it paid out e22m in unpaid taxes, fines and interest.

The ODCE sought extra funding for 20 new staff as far back as 2005. This year it was allowed to add four staff with the promise of four more later in the year.

The spending estimates of the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment reveal that other regulator bodies will get increased funding.

The National Employment Rights Authority, will see its budget rise more than €2m to €10.8m, while the Competition Authority gets an additional 11% to €6.7m.