Civil servants risk public money ‘like it’s their own’

The public paid a developer 2006 property prices in 2012 after civil servant failures caused a €30m-plus land deal to go wrong — and only got off the hook because the builder was taken over by Nama.

The example of how top-ranking backroom officials are risking “public money like its their own” was outlined at the latest meeting of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee.

According to a review of a handful of flawed financial prudence cases due to be published next week, in 2006 a section of the Department of Environment entered into a “risky” land swap deal with Durkan New Homes.

The deal was meant to see the developer take the sought-after Harcourt Terrace public plot, which contained a Garda station, in exchange for building 215 affordable homes.

The deal saw the homes sold to the State for €46m despite costing €77m in 2006. The site was due to be transferred to the developer in 2008, when the Garda station was vacated, but this did not happen, and the developer took a High Court case seeking lost funds.

In 2012, when the 215 properties that he sold to the State were worth €3m on the open market, the High Court awarded him €32.6m — which involved the additional money if he sold the homes privately in 2006, and legal costs. The sum was officially handed over to the developer.

However, as he had at that point been taken over by Nama, the money in effect was just transferred from one State body to another — a situation the PAC report will conclude dryly was “somewhat fortunate”.

The document will also provide an overview into similar scandals, including:

-The State Pathology Office, which spent €4m on a project it cancelled;

-Waterford IT, which had “control lapses” for seven years with its former president’s expenses.

“The thing that struck me most was the casual acceptance [of the costs],” said PAC chair John McGuinness.

“It’s very difficult to explain to a 79-year-old why €10 excludes them from having a medical card when you see this.”