Stormount's Public Accounts Committee has reprimanded a development agency for failing to halt fraud. The permanent secretary of the Department of Enterprise, Training and Investment, Mr Bruce Robinson, admitted mistakes had been made.
The committee was questioning officials at a public hearing yesterday. Assembly members heard that a clerk, Ms Barbara Atwell, of the Local Enterprise Development Unit (LEDU), which fosters small, indigenous firms, defrauded the agency of £118,000 sterling in 1996. A review was carried out, but it was later discovered that an assistant accountant, Mr Tom Gribben, defrauded LEDU of a further £40,000 and additional attempted frauds amounting to £60,000 between 1998 and 2000.
Ms Atwell and Mr Gribben were later jailed.
The committee's Ulster Unionist chairman, Mr Billy Bell, said: "To have one major fraud could be described as unfortunate. For a further set of frauds to occur within a short period - quite honestly, it smacks of incompetence."
An Alliance member, Mr Seamus Close, said: "It is beyond comprehension that with that catalogue of events that you still think, oh, inefficiency, nothing to do with fraud. Why would you give someone the benefit of the doubt after that catalogue of events?"
Mr Robinson admitted: "I accept that the right thing was not done." It was accepted that LEDU had a different policy on internal fraud than the Department, although this has since been changed. It was also accepted that Mr Gribben should have been suspended more quickly than was the case.
The committee will now finalise its report on the fraud cases at the development agency.