PAC to probe Martin’s SKILL funding letter

A LETTER signed by former Health Minster Micheál Martin authorising the continued payment of funds into the controversial SKILL programme health sector training fund will be scrutinised at a Public Accounts Committee (PAC) hearing today.

The letter, sent in September 2004 to SIPTU official Matt Merrigan, refers to the “continued “provision of support” to the controversial SKILL programme, described by members of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee as a “slush fund”. The fund, which spent more than €3 million over a decade of operation, has been heavily criticised following an audit that uncovered a catalogue of waste of taxpayers’ money and serious breaches of corporate governance.

Today PAC is due to question the heads of the organisations involved with establishing and administering the programme and those who had oversight of another problematic partnership programme.