SIPTU funded Finance Department official’s six trips abroad
Assistant principal Tom Dowling had a “huge role in industrial relations” and the partnership process when he travelled with union bosses representing public sector workers.
Most of these trips coincided with St Patrick’s Day and while some were described as “study visits”, the purpose of others is unknown.
Concerns about a “conflict of interest” were raised at the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) which heard there were 31 foreign trips in total. A report by the Comptroller and Auditor General this week found no financial records for travel or hotel costs were kept in relation to foreign travel to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and Britain.
The committee is investigating the source of funding and use of a bank account in the name of two SIPTU officials which received €2.3m in funding from a €60m Health Service Executive (HSE) training programme called Skill.
An internal HSE audit report said funding for these trips came from an annual €250,000 grant provided by the Department of Health bank account. The committee was told yesterday that a civil servant in the Department of Health, Bernard Carey, took part in three foreign trips.
HSE chief executive Cathal Magee said there was an “unacceptable” breach of financial regulations in the organisation. He admitted taxpayers’ money was vulnerable to waste because there was no single, country-wide control system to monitor spending in the HSE but it would take two to three years to put such an accounting system in place.
It emerged yesterday that another public body paid into the bank account. An unknown sum of funding came from Dublin City Council, which would originally have come from the Environment Department.
These trips were defended yesterday with the secretary general of the Department of Health telling the PAC that the trips were relevant to problems being addressed in the health sector at the time. He said having management and union figures on these delegations reflected the policy at the time of developing and supporting a partnership approach to organisational change.
The Department of Finance defended the travel by Mr Dowling saying study trips were “valuable” in the partnership process because he “had huge involvement in industrial relations issues”. The department said at the time of the trips it was not aware who was funding them.
* March 13-19, 2004: New York. SIPTU study visit. Attended by Tom Dowling from the Department of Finance, Bernard Carey of the Department of Health, Matt Merrigan of SIPTU and Sé O’Connor from the HSE.
* January 7-14, 2005: New York. Purpose unknown. Attended by Tom Dowling, Matt Merrigan and Sé O’Connor.
* March 6-24, 2005: Australia. Purpose unknown. Attended by Alan Smith of the Skill programme and Martin McDonald of the HSE.
* March 15-22, 2006: New York. Partnership Study Visit. Attended by 18 people, including Bernard Carey, Tom Dowling, a number of officials from SIPTU, IMPACT and ICTU. Some joined the group from a separate visit to Savannah and Boston.
* February 14-22, 2007: Los Angeles. Purpose not known. Attended by Alan Smith and Ann Judge of Skill.
* March 15-22, 2007: Boston. Social Partnership Study. Three members of Skill and their spouses, three officials from the Department of Health, five from the HSE, five from unions, including Peter McLoone from IMPACT who was on the board of Fás at the time.
* November 22-30, 2007: New York. Visits to New York Hospitals and conference. Jack Kelly from SIPTU and his spouse and Tom Dowling and spouse.
* March 13-20, 2008: Savannah, Georgia. Study Visit. Attended by Bernard Carey and Tom Dowling.
* October 3-19, 2008: Brisbane, Australia. Purpose unknown. Three unknown attendees, SIPTU represented.
* October 5-21, 2008: US, Australia, Hong Kong and Britain. Purpose not known. Attended by Alan Smith of Skill.
* March 14-19, 2009: New York. Study Visit. Bernard Carey and his wife.
CONNECT WITH US TODAY
Be the first to know the latest news and updates
