‘A new Ireland’ but it’s the same old story

Anyone tuning into yesterday’s meeting of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee would be forgiven for wondering if we have learnt anything from all that has happened in recent years.

Board members of an important provider of disability services defending the awarding of lucrative salaries (paid with donations given by the small people of Ireland) on the basis that the beneficiaries were worth it.

Then hiding behind legal “obligations” to insist there was no way of changing the payments, and shrugging their shoulders at suggestions that it might be deemed to be morally wrong.

And all the while, the state agency responsible for distributing people’s taxes for badly needed services express their concern about the situation, but say there was really very little they could do about it.

This scene was not from those days of poor accountability and poor governance, before we were scandalised by the lavish expenses claimed at training agency Fás, or the bumper bonuses paid to bankers.

This was a discussion on payments made, and questions unanswered, in 2013.

The meeting of the PAC yesterday to discuss controversy over top-up payments at the Central Remedial Clinic was much anticipated, and didn’t fail to surprise, shock and disappoint.

It was hoped that some accountability and clarity would be brought to the ongoing saga, that would ease the concerns of the public on whose charitable donations hundreds of people with disabilities depend.

Many important questions were answered during the five-and-a-half-hour meeting — thanks to the forensic questioning by TDs from across all parties — of two current directors, Jim Nugent and David Martin, and the recently retired chief executive, Paul Kiely.

But it seemed for every question answered, another 10 questions emerged.

One thing that is now clear is the precise extent of the top-up payments. They amounted to €271,057 a year — funded from the charity arm, Friends and Supporters of the CRC, and amounting to almost a fifth of its donations on average in recent years.

They included €136,000 for Mr Kiely, who retired as chief executive in June, on top of his €106,000 HSE salary paid out of the public purse.

They also included top-ups amounting to €32,537 each for four other senior staff members in human resources, IT, administration and client services, who each earned €79,000 from the HSE.

Another thing that is now clear is that the HSE were aware of these payments since 2009 despite recent attempts to distance themselves from the controversy.

Four years ago, the HSE tried to streamline payments to voluntary agencies, which received state funding and ensure they were under its new pay caps.

Mr Martin described how he attended a meeting with the HSE in June 2009 where the clinic said they were bound by contractual pay arrangements, so it would pay any amount above the cap from the CRCs’ “own resources”.

He said: “The HSE — to my understanding — agreed to that position.”

The committee heard the HSE tried to stop these payments before eventually taking out a “performance notice” — in other words a formal warning that its funding would be cut.

Committee members summed this up as the CRC giving two fingers to the HSE who allowed themselves to be pushed around by the organisation.

The health service provides €1.6bn of taxpayer’s money to voluntary organisations each year, and according to PAC chairman John McGuinness, are “haphazard” in how they are managed.

While not aware the money came from charities, the Departments of Health and Public Expenditure and Reform have known at least since July that top-ups were being paid. But they continue to be paid.

The Government insists it is rooting out the legacy problem in the system.

But the lack of transparency and accountability that has always facilitated such a culture of entitlement continues. It makes one wonder about the new Government’s promise in early 2011 — to create “a new Ireland that works”.

Dig out

By Fiachra Ó Cionnaith

CRC bosses have been accused of using €500,000 in charitable donations to dig out a linked company with near identical board members.

The latest revelations show the money was provided to the now sold CRC Medical Devices as the recession took hold.

The group was set up as a subsidiary of the CRC in June 2006 as part of attempts to “cut out the middle man” when it came to buying medical devices.

Former CRC chief executive Paul Kiely said the group, whose directors still include CRC board members Vincent Brady, Brian Conlan, Hamilton Goulding and Jim Nugent, was “tantalisingly close to making a profit” in its first years.

However, when the recession hit he said “the business collapsed”.

At an as yet unstated point, the group was transferred from a subsidiary of the CRC to the same position with the Friends and Supporters of the CRC.

At this point, it received a loan of approximately €500,000 in charitable donations from the Friends and Supporters company, whose directors are almost identical to both other organisations.

Mr Nugent said while attempts were being made to recoup the sum, “I doubt if we’ll recover it all”.

PAC member Kieran O’Donnell said the CRC’s actions amount to “transferring the loan onto the backs of people. Charity effectively indemnified the loans.”