Ex-Rehab bosses get two weeks to respond

Former Rehab bosses Frank Flannery and Angela Kerins have been given two weeks to provide details of their pension arrangements and other information on management of the disability charity to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee before it uses powers to compel them to come before a public grilling.

There was unanimous agreement at a meeting of the PAC last night to apply to the Committee on Procedure and Privilege which can then set in train a process to force witnesses to attend.

PAC chairman John McGuinness said he does not expect that it would be a drawn-out process, and is confident that, once the procedures committee meets to discuss the issue, the witnesses can be called in quickly.

But first, Mr Kerins and Mr Flannery are being given 14 days to respond to a range of queries surrounding their pension and pay-off arrangements, and consultancy contracts awarded to Mr Flannery and members of the charity’s board.

The PAC also agreed that it will use powers to compel Government departments that contributed to the charity’s €95.5m in state funding last year to give information or be compelled to attend.

Ms Kerins, who retired as chief executive of the charity two weeks ago, and her predecessor, Mr Flannery, did not attend last Thursday’s PAC meeting into spending at the disability charity.

In the wake of that meeting, where members of Rehab’s board failed to deny that Ms Kerins effectively ran the group as a “fiefdom”, Mr McGuinness said the case for the pair to come before the committee was stronger than ever.

The revelation that 92% of Rehab’s Irish income comes from either state funds or charitable donations means they have “a greater obligation than ever to come before the PAC”, he said.

It emerged that, of the €118m in funding from within Ireland, €95.5m is public taxes and €13.5m is charitable donations.

Mr McGuinness said Ms Kerins and Mr Flannery must explain: - Their remuneration, severance payments, pensions, and ongoing payment because the “myth” that they came from private sources and not state money has been busted; - The “arrangement they had between one and other” in relation to more than €400,000 in lobbying and consultancy fees paid by Rehab to Mr Flannery. Ms Kerins sanctioned these without the approval of the board or the group’s finance director, Keith Poole. “No one knows much about these consultancy contracts except the two of them,” Mr McGuinness said. - Why these payments were sent by UK subsidiary TGB Learning instead of Rehab after Mr Flannery joined the charity’s board in 2011.