VEC board paid €375k expenses over five years

The board of the former Cork County VEC received nearly six times more in payments and expenses than its city counterparts in the five years prior to the amalgamation of the two organisations, correspondence to the Public Account Committee has revealed.

The payments come to light as the new Cork Education and Training Board (ETB) — the body formed from the amalgamation of the two bodies in July 2013 — has issued new guidelines to its members on expenses.

Payments to members of Co Cork VEC totalled €375,157.14 between 2009 and 2013, compared with payments of just €63,803.50 for the City of Cork VEC board for the same period.

Of the 30 board members that served on Co Cork VEC over the five years, former Fine Gael councillor Noel O’Connor received the most in payments and expenses, collecting €54,719.72 in that time. This total also includes expenses that arose from Mr O’Connor’s time as president of Education and Training Boards Ireland, formerly the IVEA, from 2010 to 2014.

The second highest total paid by the Co Cork VEC was to Rev Dr Tom Deenihan, who received €28,531.71.

Mr O’Connor said that his presidency of the ETBI took him around the country at a time when the amalgamation of many VEC boards was under way.

“I incurred those expenses as president of the ETBI. The ETBI’s headquarters is in Naas, I would have gone to meetings with the Department of Education in Athlone and other places. I represented the organisation at official functions around the country.

“There was substantial work done to ease the process of amalgamating VECs and I am delighted that it has been very successful. The whole process involved negotiating with the CEOs of VECs and the Department of Education and ensuring that everyone was singing from the same hymn sheet. The expenses are not because I was travelling around Co Cork, I was working on policy at a national level to ensure that policy went ahead with in a safe and secure way,” he said.

By comparison, the most any of the 19 members who served for the same period on the board of the City of Cork VEC received was €9,162.10, which was paid to Maire Roycroft.

As part of the new directives issued by the Cork ETB, all board members’ expenses must be vouched, and no board member can live more than 20km from the school board they sit on and claim the mileage.

The publication of the figures was welcomed by Sinn Féin Cork City councillor Chris O’Leary, who had previously lobbied to have the payments made public.

Mr O’Leary, who was paid €2,309.58 for his time on the City VEC board from 2010-2013, said that while board members can have legitimate expenses, he would question the higher amounts paid.

“With all due respects, that’s five years payments from the Department of Social Protection to someone on the dole,” he said of the total paid to Mr O’Connor. He also welcomed the directive limiting the distance from which board members can claim expenses, and claimed that some members sat on the boards of schools in a different part of the county to where they lived.

The figures were provided to the Public Accounts Committee, as part of correspondence from the secretary general of the department, Seán Ó Foghlú, on December 10.