Cullen PR saga - Contract controversy rumbles on

Today will see the formal end of the contractual association between Monica Leech and the Department of the Environment, but the saga it generated has still to run its course.

Among the lingering memories of one of the most talked about contracts of any communications adviser to any minister will be the three-day trip to a tropical island resort with the then Environment Minister Martin Cullen, his spokesman and his personal secretary.

It emerged the trip to Langwaki cost the taxpayer €3,000, but was separate to the business of a 26-strong Irish delegation to Malaysia in February of last year.

As a political associate of Mr Cullen, her contracts from the Office of Public Works and the Department were worth approximately €300,000, a not inconsiderable sum of public money.

While they raised eyebrows a report by former Revenue Commissioner Dermot Quigley found no evidence of impropriety in the awarding of the contracts to Ms Leech.

What he did find was plenty of scope for improvement in the manner in which contracts are awarded by State bodies to private consultancy firms.

He made a number of recommendations which Taoiseach Bertie Ahern pledged to have implemented.

The saga is not concluded yet in the sense that the Standards in Public Office Commission has still to decide whether it should investigate the circumstances surrounding the contracts.

It adjourned a decision after a five-hour meeting on Friday in order to get more legal advice on the issue.