Ex-CRC boss to appear before Dáil committee

The recently retired boss of the Central Remedial Clinic, Brian Conlon, will face a grilling over salary top-ups at the agency when he appears before the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee next month.

Following warnings that he would be compelled to attend using legal avenues opened to the committee, Mr Conlon contacted the committee last night to say he will attend.

Among the issues on which clarity will be sought is whether he was receiving a pension from his previous role in the Mater Hospital while serving as chief executive of the CRC from July until he quit this week.

The committee members are also expected to ask if he was aware of an arrangement in which the CRC paid €666,000 a year to the Mater to administer a pension scheme his predecessor, Paul Kiely, claims is no longer functional.

The HSE is expected to deliver a report to the PAC on this issue in the coming days. Committee chairman John McGuinness said he expects to hear from the Mater at a meeting scheduled for next week.

Mr Conlon had been criticised for refusing to attend a meeting of the PAC on Wednesday which included Mr Kiely and two CRC board members, David Martin and Jim Nugent.

Mr Nugent said Mr Conlon had felt a “huge intrusion on his personal life” as a result of the controversy surrounding top-up payments amounting to more than €270,000 for five staff members — using money donated by the public to its charity arm.

At a follow-up meeting of the PAC yesterday morning, it was agreed to seek approval from the Oireachtas committee on procedure and privileges, to compel him to appear.

But that drawn-out process will now be avoided and he is due to appear in early January, in a move welcomed by Mr McGuinness as another step in ensuring the issue of top-ups is “consigned to history”.

HSE director general Tony O Brien has begun a series of meetings with senior bosses in all voluntary health agencies in receipt of public money to establish the extent of the practice.

He will also use the meetings — which must be completed by the end of this year — to issue a new annual compliance statement that all groups must sign and confirm they are implementing in order to receive HSE funding.

Health Minister James Reilly has threatened funding cuts to bodies which fail to adhere to HSE rules.

The Government is facing criticism for its failure to implement rules to regulate the charity sector, which were passed in the Dáil as far back as 2009.

Under questioning in the Dáil, Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore said it is intended that the Charity Act will begin “early in the new year”.

Fianna Fáil said the delay had resulted in the current controversy. Its finance spokesman, Michael McGrath, said: “We are now seeing some of the fallout from the lack of standards applying across the 8,000 charities in the country. I hope the regulator and all the associated provisions in terms of financial disclosures and standards can be put in place without any further delay.”