Garda mobile calls costing taxpayer €750,000

Around 1,000 gardaí have official mobile phones and the bill for calls is now costing the taxpayer around €750,000 each year.

Officials of the Office of Public Works (OPW) told the Dáil Public Accounts Committee yesterday that under a deal between the Government and telephone operator Esat (now O2), the company can offset the cost of calls made by gardaí on mobile phones against rental payments to the State for masts at Garda stations.

OPW commissioner Mr David Byers told the committee that the number of handsets provided to the Garda under the agreement had increased greatly in recent years.

An OPW spokesman later told The Irish Times that it was initially anticipated that 100 handsets would be issued to gardaí, but that the figure today was close to 1,000. This would indicate that around one in every 12 members of the Garda now has been issued with an official mobile phone.

Mr Byers said that the bills submitted by the telephone company for offset against rental had been audited, and that there was no doubt that the calls had been made. The Garda Press Office was last night unable to comment on the regulations governing the issuing and use of official mobile phones.

Over the lifetime of the current five-year agreement with O2, the cost of Garda phonecalls offset against rental income is expected to run into several million euro. The overall rental income to the State for mobile phone masts on Garda stations is understood to be around €2 million per year.

The €750,000 cost of the Garda calls contributed to a €4 million discrepancy last year between the amount which OPW had anticipated generating in overall rental income and the actual sum received.

OPW chairman Mr Seán Benton told the Dáil Committee that the remainder of this figure was due to changed accountancy procedures.

Mr Byers said that the clause in the contract which allowed O2 to offset the cost of Garda mobile calls against rental income, had been put in place by the Garda authorities and the Department of Justice. He said that OPW had to implement the arrangement. OPW is effectively the landlord for Garda stations around the country.

Mr Byers said that OPW had recently introduced a new agreement to allow other mobile phone operators to share masts on Garda stations. This will not allow for call charges to be offset against rents. However, the deal with O2 will continue for up to two years.

The chairman of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee, Mr Michael Noonan told The Irish Times last night that he would question senior officials of the Department of Justice about the telephone deal.

The Department of Justice said that it was not responsible for expenditure for Garda mobiles and that it was a matter between O2, the Garda authorities and OPW.

Meanwhile, the OPW told the committee that recent breaches of EU tendering requirements on some contracts arose in the main "from the exceptional circumstances surrounding the organising of major events for the EU presidency".

Mr Benton said that, where possible, competitive tendering was followed but that this was not always practical or feasible given the way requirements were evolving up to the last minute.

In relation to reports that an OPW employee was associated with a company tendering for services at Dublin Castle, he said that an external study had found no evidence that the person concerned made any direct personal gain from decisions taken.

However, Mr Benton said that new procedures were being put in place.