OPW covers the €5m cost of gardaí’s mobile phone calls

GARDAÍ have run up €5 million in mobile phone calls since 1997, leaving the Office of Public Works (OPW) to pick up the bill.

Details released by the OPW yesterday reveal that gardaí made calls worth 4.9m since 1997 on handsets supplied free by 02.

However, as a result of a complicated deal between the Department of Justice, the OPW, gardaí and O2, the cost of all calls was deducted from rent due on mobile phone masts on Garda stations.

Although many gardaí continue to believe that all calls on the mobiles concerned are free, the OPW has received less than half the expected amount of mast rent after the cost of garda calls is subtracted by O2.

Instead of receiving an estimated €7.8m in rent from O2 since 1997, the OPW has only been paid €2.9m. The remaining €4.9m has been eaten up in Garda telephone calls.

OPW officials last week told the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that they had never intended the gardaí to make so many calls. According to the OPW, the initial deal involved 100 phones a figure which has since spiralled to more than 1,000.

A new deal, currently being drawn up by the OPW, will end the current practice and open up the use of masts on Garda stations to all mobile phone companies.

However, the State's financial watchdog, Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell, is understood to be investigating the controversial deal. The PAC will also raise the issue with the Department of Justice.

PAC chairman Michael Noonan, who originally spotted the discrepancy between the OPW rental estimate and the actual rental payments at last week's PAC meeting, said he would be asking the Department of Justice to explain the deal.

"The figure is significant and I will be raising it with the Department of Justice in the context of their vote," he said.

Mr Noonan said he was concerned that the manner in which the deal was done was not transparent and effectively hid the cost of Garda calls behind rental income due to the OPW.

Both the Department of Justice and Garda authorities declined to discuss details of the contract.