TWO SEPARATE payments of €190,000 sanctioned by the Department of Health to Siptu for training cannot now be traced, the Dáil Public Accounts Committee has been told.
The committee yesterday held a further hearing into how millions of euro in State funding from various sources ended up in a bank account known as the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy fund. The committee has heard that the account was controlled by senior Siptu official Matt Merrigan and a senior member of the union Jack Kelly. Siptu corporately has said it knew nothing about this account.
HSE internal auditor Geraldine Smith said there was evidence of two payments sanctioned by the Department of Health in 2001 and 2002 for €190,000 to be channelled through the former office of health management to Siptu for frontline personnel training.
However, she said: “We can’t see where it has gone.”
Ms Smith said the department had confirmed the payment had been made to the office of health management. She said in July 2001 the then director of the office, Alan Smith, had written to the department to say he had paid the money into the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy fund account.
Ms Smith said that in April 2002 an assistant secretary in the department had written to the office of health management approving a further payment of €190,000. However, Ms Smith said that when the HSE approached Siptu about these payments, the union had said there was no record of the money being lodged to any of its official accounts. The union also maintained that its investigation into the account showed no evidence of the money being lodged there either.
Ms Smith said the HSE would be making further inquiries again with Mr Smith, who retired in 2009. However, chief executive of the HSE Cathal Magee said Mr Smith had not co-operated with previous inquiries. He said this was not acceptable for a former public servant.
Separately, Siptu was also accused of not co-operating fully with the investigation. The HSE’s director of human resources, Seán McGrath, said he believed Siptu was withholding information.
Ms Smith said the report of the trustees of Siptu into the controversy had not provided all the answers. She said that she had met Siptu’s financial advisers, who told her that while they were authorised by their clients to give some details, they were not authorised to give others.
She said Siptu had declined to provide the names of individuals who had made reimbursements to the Siptu account after the controversy surrounding foreign trips for public officials, which it was used, in part to fund, became known in 2009 and 2010.
Committee chairman John McGuinness urged Siptu, Mr Smith, Mr Merrigan and Mr Kelly “to come clean”.
Last night Siptu president Jack O’Connor said the union had always said it would attend the committee if invited. He said the union was not able to answer all the questions as it did not have the answers.
Mr O’Connor said the union had provided all the information it had with the exception, on legal advice, of the details of persons who had made reimbursements.