Firm given €70,000 in error

Údarás na Gaeltachta has said it does not intend to try further to secure repayment of a €70,000 grant paid in error to a quarry company located outside the Gaeltacht.

Údarás chief executive Pádraig Ó hAoláin told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee yesterday he had reviewed the file on the grant and believed there was no way of proving the applicant company had tried to pull the wool over its eyes.

There had been "an innocuous mistake" on the part of Údarás, which believed at the time that the company was located in the Gaeltacht.

The company, M&M Cairéil Teo, based near Moycullen in Co Galway, received the grant in late 1998 for the development of its quarrying business.

Mr Ó hAoláin said he had walked the site of the quarry and that although it was outside the Gaeltacht, it was like an island surrounded by land in the Gaeltacht.

He said the company met all the conditions for the grant, and the benefits and employment involved had all accrued to the local community.

Mr Ó hAoláin said Údarás had already spent €10,000 worth of staff time on the issue, and it would be a waste of taxpayers' money to pursue it further.

The company had indicated it would vigorously defend any attempt to recover the money.

Comptroller and Auditor General John Purcell told the committee he believed an honest mistake had been made.

However, Fianna Fáil deputy John Dennehy said neither the Department of Social and Family Affairs nor the Department of Finance would accept such an excuse in cases of overpayments to social welfare recipients.