Jonathan Hill under fire from PAC for 'suggesting' payment against FAI policy

A delegation from the Association are facing questions at Leinster House.

FAI chief executive Jonathan Hill, right, and FAI independent director Catherine Guy arrive at Leinster House. Pic Seb Daly/Sportsfile

Jonathan Hill has admitted he “suggested” receiving an erroneous payment from the FAI but stresses it was in the context of a throwaway remark.

The FAI chief executive is under fire as part of a delegation from the Football Association of Ireland before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

Broadly summoned to the committee to deal with governance matters, there is particular interest in the circumstances around the receipt by Hill of €11,500 in lieu of untaken holidays.

This payment not only contravenes his own handbook issued to staff, who are bound by a principle of 'use them or lose them' past a predetermined date but had the collateral impact of his earnings exceeding the maximum salary laid out in the MOU conditions linked to the 2020 bailout.

The PAC are the primary watchdog for how exchequer funding is spent – the Dáil Éireann forum which focuses on ensuring public services are run efficiently and achieve value for money.

This session was initially scheduled for February 1 but was deferred upon the request of the FAI. Another plea to adjourn lodged last week was rejected.

As part of their procedures, certain documentation and information was sought to be submitted in advance.

While the majority of these were complied with, distinctly absent was the FAI’s opening statement and the chain of emails requested to verify Hill’s version of events around his involvement, or otherwise, in the receipt of the overpayment.

He said on December 13 on their last visit to Kildare Street: “I didn’t push it. I wasn’t asking for it.” However, in the belated opening statement, which annoyed the committee, he now states: “I made a suggestion in relation to my own unused holidays.

“The then finance director (Alex O’Connell) evidently regarded this as a request and passed on to the then Chair of the FAI.” 

Under questioning by the first speaker, Paul McAuliffe TD, Hill tried to elaborate by claiming he made a throwaway remark. "Can you negotiate the same for me please?"

He was referring to a junior employee, who had their request for payment granted.

That person’s anonymity was cited for the majority of Hill’s emails being redacted, a stance Mr McAuliffe and the Chairman Brian Stanley countered.

Paul McAuliffe highlighted a ‘credibility issue’ stemming from the opening statement arriving almost 23 hours past the deadline, an hour before the session, noting previous instances of this practice didn’t end well for those organisations. “You’ve put yourself in this suspicious position,” he asserted.

Following this exchange with Mr Hill, comments – or the lack of them – from President Paul Cooke indicated all was not well behind the scenes.

It’s understood a board meeting held on the eve of the meeting ran late into the night.

Asked if he had confidence in Jonathan Hill, Mr Cooke didn’t directly answer. “I have confidence in the senior leadership team and the board.” Pressed further, he added: “My confidence in Jonathan has been challenged by these events.” Chairman Tony Keohane branded this is “a slip-up”, on the organisation as a whole, including Mr Hill.

A central plank of today’s discussion centred on the dispersal of €33.7m in covid-19 resilience funding that was granted to offset revenue losses during the pandemic.

Although they trumpeted the fact that Sport Ireland’s had given the FAI a clean bill of health, amid a quizzing by James O’Connor TD, the FAI admitted some of the monies were allocated towards reducing their debt from €64m to €44m over the period of Hill’s four-year term.

The terms of the Covid-19 resilience payouts clearly outline: “Pre-existing deficits or debts are not covered.” Hill deferred the question to their current finance director Dan McCormack: “Some of the (covid) money was used against capital debt repayments, isolated to a legacy commercial item.” 

More to follow…