Six-year probe into alleged financial mismanagement at Garda college  completed

A Garda internal audit review of the college covering the years 2009 to 2016 found that it could offer “no assurance that the internal management and control systems in place to manage the finances at the Garda College are adequate”.

A six-year investigation into the alleged financial mismanagement of the Garda college in Templemore has finally completed, with the DPP now set to decide whether or not a criminal prosecution is warranted.

The Garda Síochána Ombudsman Commission (Gsoc) said that the results of its independent public interest criminal investigation have now been forwarded to the DPP.

The matter was first raised with the ombudsman in June 2017 by then Garda commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan.

Initial interest in the matter was sparked following a Garda internal audit review of the college covering the years 2009 to 2016, which found that it could offer “no assurance that the internal management and control systems in place to manage the finances at the Garda College are adequate”.

It found that Garda staff assigned to administrate the college in the Co Tipperary town “had no training in or experience of administration” and had no expertise in knowledge of public purse management, while €125,000 collected in rent on a farm adjacent to the college was lodged to the Garda restaurant account, rather than being transferred to the OPW, the legal owner of that land.

The audit led to a series of robust hearings of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) at which some of the issues seen at the college were laid bare.

Documents provided to the PAC by the gardaí showed heightened tensions among the ranks of senior gardaí for a number of years up to that point over the financial management of the college.

The college had already stood accused of running a complex series of 50 bank accounts, operated by staff with little or no financial training, with those accounts used for unclear purposes.

It is as yet unclear why GSOC’s investigation of those matters had taken so long to produce a final report.

Documents provided to the PAC by the gardaí showed heightened tensions among the ranks of senior gardaí for a number of years up to that point over the financial management of the college.

Gsoc said that due to the “specialist nature” of the matter, as well as the fact that it had involved the use of EU funds, it had commissioned a “multi-disciplinary, multi-agency team” to conduct the investigation, including Garda officers from the gardaí’s bureaus of criminal investigation and economic crime.

Fraud accountants were likewise seconded from the Revenue Commissioners, while specialist legal expertise was consulted in terms of a final review of the case file.

There had been speculation that the investigation had been slowed by Gsoc having regard to a separate investigation into the matter by the EU’s anti-fraud office OLAF.

However, OLAF had previously confirmed to the PAC in May 2021 that it had both opened and closed its own investigation into the matter at that point.

Gsoc said it will be offering no further comment on the matter while it remains before the DPP.