Committee urged to delay probe into centre
Bev Cotton wrote to the committee and said it would be premature to examine the reports until a full independent inquiry could be conducted.
He said County Cork VEC’s internal audit and the allegations made in it had “seriously defamed” him.
Mr Cotton said there were other substantial issues which required investigation but were not in the audit. He said the committee had instead been presented with an audit containing “bogus and vexatious allegations”.
“In all these circumstances it is unsafe to draw any conclusions about these matters until a more substantial, independent investigation of all the facts can be undertaken,” he said.
Ahead of its meeting with three VECs and the Department of Education, the committee decided to refer all the information it had received on Macroom Youthreach to Comptroller and Auditor General John Buckley. His office will decide if a full-scale probe is warranted.
The audit Mr Cotton referred to had estimated that almost €200,000 was lost on mismanagement at the Macroom centre.
Mr Cotton took early ret-irement in 2010 and has not made any public comments on the issue until now.
The matter was not dealt with in open session yesterday. The committee decided there was too much allegation and counter-allegation to investigate it at this point. However, the committee did deal with the fallout from another project involving County Cork VEC.
This involved the loss of over €161,000 on a failed computer project at Glanmire Community College.
Joan Russell, the acting chief executive of County Cork VEC, “acknowledged and accepted” the findings of a critical report the C&AG published in relation to the Glanmire deal.
She said the project was taken on in good faith and on the understanding it dovetailed with government policy on IT in schools.
The secretary general of the Department of Education, Brigid McManus, said it had misgivings about the amount offered to the project by County Cork VEC.
She said it was “hard to understand” how the VEC was not aware of its obligations to get departmental approval before taking out a loan.
Ms McManus said another VEC had been approached by the same company involved in the Glanmire deal but knew to go to the department first and turn it down.
The committee also confronted the chief executive of Cork City VEC, Ted Owens, on a separate issue involving staff who set up a company to sell IT equipment back to the VEC.
Mr Owens said he was shocked by the failures that happened on his watch and appalled by other incidents in the same institution, Coláiste Stiofáin Naofa. In this case the amount of students on its books had been misrepresented. This resulted in it getting €800,000 of additional teachers and support it should not have received.
