Senior official overpaid €70,000

A RETIRED senior Department of Education official was overpaid over €70,000 because of misinterpretation of rules on payment for unused holidays.

The mistake was discovered during a payroll audit at the department and led to 16 other such cases being unearthed.

The Department of Finance has subsequently asked all other government departments to review their files to identify similar cases where annual leave carryover rules had not been properly applied, after the matter was brought to its attention by the Comp- troller and Auditor General (C&AG) John Purcell.

Under rules notified to all departments in 2003, civil servants can be paid for untaken annual leave accrued when they resign, retire or die. However, any leave which is not taken within two years of the year to which it applies is lost.

The Department of Education official had recently retired when the C&AG audit last year noted the payment of €77,586 for 120 days of untaken leave.

After investigating the matter, department secretary general Brigid McManus reported back that the untaken leave had been accumulated since 1994 but the personnel section had told the retiring official he was entitled to be paid for any untaken leave.

He should have been paid for just 37 days instead of 120, leaving a gross overpayment of €53,664. The official was unaware the payment was not consistent with Department of Finance rules and told the Department of Education he wished to repay the amount incorrectly received when they informed him of the error.

Ms McManus told the C&AG that around €392,000 was paid to 64 officials for untaken leave when they stopped working for the Department of Education in the last five years. A total of around €69,000 was overpaid among 16 of these officials and the possibility of seeking repayments is being considered.

The Department of Education plans to put measures in place to bring about compliance with the guidelines and minimise payments to individuals in lieu of untaken leave.

The excess carry-over of leave had been allowed due to various pressures on the department over a number of years, the C&AG was told. The department’s position was that staff should not suffer loss of untaken leave as a result of the pressures.

These included a major internal reorganisation, creation of regional offices and the establishment of the State Examinations Commission and National Council for Special Education.