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.