Garda boss did not raise account issues

Fresh controversy has enveloped Garda Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan after she was criticised by the State’s financial watchdog for failing to mention possible financial irregularities at Templemore Garda College in a formal accounting notification to him.

The intervention by Comptroller and Auditor General Seamus McCarthy at the Public Accounts Committee emerged as one member, Fianna Fáil’s Marc MacSharry, revealed that a 2010 email purportedly from Garda finance boss Michael Culhane to the Department of Justice allegedly referred to an attempt to “muddy” things up regarding taxation matters in correspondence with Revenue.

In another dramatic day at the PAC, Ms O’Sullivan said she had referred a report by the Garda internal auditor Niall Kelly to the Garda Ombudsman in which he raised suspicions that “fraud may have been committed” involving a secret garda bank account, which at its height held €90,000-plus.