‘No evidence’ VEC got permission for HQ lease costing taxpayer €420,000

The Department of Education has said it can find no evidence that Wexford VEC got permission before signing a lease for a new headquarters which has cost taxpayers €420,000.

Inquiries are ongoing to find out what communication took place before the VEC signed a lease to move offices in 2006 when there was still eight years to run on the deal for its old headquarters.

In a letter to the Public Accounts Committee, the secretary general of the department, Sean Ó Foghlú, said the VEC was required to get permission before signing the lease but that there is no evidence of this happening.

“Despite a thorough search, no document from the VEC seeking such approval has yet to be identified... The only document so far identified in relation to the matter is a letter from the CEO in December 2005 which refers, among other items, to the initial costs of moving to the new premises. [The CEO] who co-signed the lease for the Ardcavan premises has informed the department that, as far as she can recollect, the department was informed... and that the department gave approval to enter the lease,” the letter states.

A Comptroller and Auditor General report on the VEC recently highlighted that money had been lost because the old building lay vacant due to the recession.

Mr Ó Foghlú said the old building was first leased in 1984 and was vacated in 2006 to facilitate the move.

There was still eight years left on the original lease, and a tenant was found to sublet the property from 2006 to June 2008.

Mr Ó Foghlú said that in the first two years, the VEC received €51,000 rent per annum. Between July 2006 and the present, day it had spent €540,000 to satisfy the lease. “[This resulted in] net ineffective expenditure of €420,000 to date,” he said.