City manager concerned at leak of ‘private’ letter

Cork’s city manager has expressed concern about how the contents of a confidential letter criticising the performance of his organisation was leaked.

Tim Lucey, who leaves office this week to take over at the helm of Cork County Council, said the contents of the report should not have been made public.

The letter, written to him by the local government auditor Eamonn Daly in November 2013, highlighted significant control weaknesses in the council’s management structure.

Mr Daly also said the council’s response when failures were highlighted was “poor”.

The details of Mr Daly’s report were outlined in the Irish Examiner yesterday along with his notes on an €11m budget overrun at the Sarsfield Rd roundabout, and debt problems caused by property purchases during the boom.

On Saturday night, Mr Lucey wrote to city councillors and said the language in the letter reflected the fact it was supposed to be private.

He said it should not have been put in the public domain as it was only circulated to a small number of people.

“This audit management letter was issued by me to each member of my management team earlier this year for them each to prepare a response for me [and] for the auditor, and to update me as to the progress made by them in addressing any matters raised therein.

“In early March, I became aware that a journalist had in his possession a copy of same. Clearly this is a cause of serious concern to me, not particularly in relation to the matters raised therein, but that such a letter would have gone out of the organisation when I had only issued it to my management team, and to the chairman of the council’s audit committee for information.”

In his weekend correspondence to councillors, Mr Lucey said while the auditor had flagged problems, he had never qualified the accounts of the authority.

He said the issues contained in Mr Daly’s report — which included the €11m budget overrun at Sarsfield Rd and a failure to respond to or fully implement internal audit reports — should not cause concern among elected members.

“I wish to reaffirm that the council’s audit for 2012, and indeed all previous years, was not qualified by the auditor and the public report of the auditor has not raised any issue of significance that is a major cause of concern.”