Report on Siptu fund set to criticise officials

The Comptroller and Auditor General will today submit a report to the Houses of the Oireachtas on his investigation into a controversial fund controlled by a number of Siptu officials.

More than €5m was paid into the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy between 1998 and 2010. Large sums were used to pay for more than 40 foreign trips for trade union leaders and senior civil and public service staff.

Siptu official Matt Merrigan and activist Jack Kelly were signatories to the account but when controversy emerged, the union’s executive insisted — and it now seems universally accepted — that it had no knowledge of the account.

Last year, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee asked the C&AG to investigate after the committee said a stand-off had emerged between Siptu and the HSE. The committee insisted the comptroller be given full access to all information, including a Grant Thornton report which “holds key information in the way this account operated and the way in which funds were spent in an unorthodox fashion on foreign travel and lavish entertainment”.

The C&AG report is expected to criticise a number of parties, including Government officials. An investigation by the union in 2011 found that while Mr Merrigan acted inappropriately, he did not do so for his own financial gain.

However, it judged that, as someone who held a senior position in the union, Mr Merrigan should not have operated the account without telling Siptu. he retired last year.

Siptu has now changed its rules to prohibit anyone from opening an account in its name without approval from the national executive.