Council reveals €117,000 misappropriation

A STAFF member at Cork County Council has been dismissed after the misappropriation of €117,000.

The Local Government Audit Service report published yesterday also detailed action against two other staff members including one employee who has been on suspension for almost a year after a controversial land deal in Charleville.

Another employee was suspended for two weeks after authorising a €50,000 payment to a road sign company which went into liquidation without delivering the goods.

County manager Martin Riordan said a wide-ranging investigation had been conducted into the misappropriation of €117,601. The money had been entrusted to an employee to lodge, over a period of time, in the council’s bank account.

The employee, who worked in the council’s Western Cork Division, was initially suspended on full pay but then dismissed. The council has been able to recover all but €27,646.

However, the auditor’s reported showed the council had to write-off the €50,000 unauthorised payment to the sign-making firm which had since gone into liquidation.

Mr Riordan said the official, who authorised the payment, did not comply with council procedures. His punishment was a two-week suspension without pay.

The county manager said new controls were now in place in the hope of ensuring misappropriation of cash and unauthorised payments would not occur again.

Mr Riordan revealed an internal inquiry into a land deal in Charleville was almost complete.

In June 2006, he said, an official was suspended on full pay after property developers Pushkin Developments made a complaint to the council. The company had reportedly sold 20 acres of land in Charleville to two bankers for €8 million.

Pushkin Developments alleged that, even before the bankers signed the cheque, the pair had entered into a deal to sell off the site to the council for €11.6m.

The local authority paid the bankers a percentage of the agreed price but, following the complaint, refused to hand over the balance. A deal was subsequently hammered out where the council agreed to pay the vendors €9.75m for the land.

It was confirmed yesterday that the council inquiry was widened to encompass a number of other property deals.

A number of county councillors criticised the delay in concluding the Charleville inquiry.

Mr Riordan said it was taking so long as “due process had to be observed”.

He added that gardaí had been notified about the internal injury but, as yet, had not been given its findings. “I am anxious to get this to a conclusion,” Mr Riordan assured councillors.

The council employee, at the centre of the Charleville probe, has maintained he did nothing wrong and had followed council procedures to the letter of the law.