At least five global trips taken by one senior manager

The Central Remedial Clinic has been “extremely generous in the way it sends people around the globe to attend conferences”, Independent TD Shane Ross told the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

He provided details of at least five trips undertaken by one senior manager to locations including Florida, Buenos Aires, New Delhi and Vancouver at the expense of the disability agency. Mr Ross also questioned the recently retired chief executive of the CRC, Brian Conlon, about a scheme run by the CRC called the European Seating Symposium (ESS) — that invited people to part take in “study days” across Europe.

He quoted a letter written by Simon Hall — a manager of clinical technology at the CRC — inviting “delegates” of the ESS to take part in “extremely successful study days throughout Europe”.

The letter said: “We currently have a call for people to take part in study days” to Slovenia, Norway, Spain Portugal and France.

Mr Ross said these were paid for by cheques written to a CRC branch in Finglas. “The plans were to travel all around Europe for reasons I don’t understand,” he said.

Mr Conlon said he “wouldn’t be familiar with study days” and asked if he knew anything about them, he said “No.” But he said the ESS was a “very profitable venture” for CRC.

Mr Ross also outlined the foreign travel undertaken by Mr Hall, who is involved in organising the Seating Symposiums, including:

2006 — Nashville, with another member of CRC staff.

2007 — Orlando, “which is where the Fás guys went”, said Mr Ross.

2009 — Orlando, with five other staff members of the CRC.

2010 — Vancouver, Canada.

2011 — Buenos Aires, Argentina.

2013 — Vancouver, Canada, and New Delhi, India.

2013 — Nashville.

He is also due to travel to Vancouver again in March of this year.

Mr Conlon said he did not know about the trips: “I can’t be expected to know who is travelling around, how would I know that, as a board member. I was only chief executive for months.”

Mr Conlon said the CRC Medical Devices Company — set up for the purpose of distributing wheelchairs and other devices — spent €14,000 on foreign travel and €3,900 on entertainment in 2012. He could not provide such figures for CRC itself.