Audit defends €625k HSA bill for fine dining and hotels

Despite lavish spending during the boom, an internal audit by the country’s health and safety watchdog has concluded the taxpayer-funded agency did not abuse credit cards by splashing out at five-star international hotels and Michelin restaurants.

Crowleys DFK Chartered Accountants defended the Health and Safety Authority’s €625,668 credit card bill between Jan 2005 and Jun 2011 as being just 1% of its non-pay expenditure.

The audit was given to the Public Accounts Committee in May after it convened a hearing on HSA credit card expenditure.

The PAC chairman, John McGuinness, was scathing in his criticism of the report.

“It almost condones the reckless spending. It should be saying people will be held accountable and it will never happen again.”

However, credit card bills released under a Freedom of Information request to Cork businessman Frank Delaney showed a senior executive spent over €2,200 on his HSA credit card at the luxurious Santa Monica hotel, Shutters on the Beach, in Sept 2005.

That same month, the same credit card racked up over €1,500 at the Lake Buena Vista Disney Resort in Florida.

Statements show how another executive spent €2,544 on a stay at Novotel Den Haag in The Hague, Holland, in Dec 2006.

One executive, in Feb 2007, spent €610 in Copenhagen, Denmark, at Det Lille Apotek, a restaurant that claims to be the city’s oldest eatery.

A HSA spokesman said the stay at a Disney Resort in Florida related to attendance at the World Safety Conference at the same resort and a meeting of the EU/US Joint Committee.

Between Jan 2005 and Jan 2011, the HSA spent up to €376,000 on flights. Yet it confirmed following an FoI request of its travel costs it “does not provide health and safety facilities for other countries”.

The audit by Crowleys DFK defended the €376,048 flight spend, saying the majority of the bill was “reasonable”. Only three flights to New York and to Toronto, amounting to €8,284, “could be deemed excessive”, it found.

The auditors also defended the €376,048 spent on flights, saying up to 60% was refundable by the EU or another body.

The audit showed, however, that the HSA could only provide a valid business reason for 172 (73.5%) of the 234 flights examined. During this period, the HSA was under no obligation to record the class of air travel.

It was reported last year how the HSA had spent wildly on restaurants in Ireland during the Celtic Tiger. One dinner at the Clarence Hotel in Dublin amounted to €2,673, with €873 spent on drinks and a €300 tip. This “may have been excessive”, according to auditors.

“Since 2008, expenditure in this general area has seen substantial decline. Credit card expenditure in 2010 was almost half the 2008 level,” said a HSA spokesman. Since 2009 the HSA has a vouched expenses policy based on ‘value for money’.

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Fine dining on taxpayers’ money