ANALYSIS:Two Siptu officials had control over an account containing millions in public funds where attention to reporting rules and governance codes was ignored
THERE IS a tactic used by the United Nations whereby it gets the parties involved in a conflict to sit down and talk. It then tries to lock them into a busy round of meetings, conferences, workshops and seminars.
Trapped in an endless series of foreign trips, the would-be foes serve out their days in hotel lobbies and airport lounges talking ad nauseam about conflict resolution and the bad old days.
A similar tactic may lie behind the latest scandal involving loose controls and public funds.
Coming hot on the heels of the controversies at Fás, the HSE scandal concerning the so-called Siptu fund feels like another chapter from the secret life of the partnership process.
What emerged at yesterday’s meeting of the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) was that exchequer funds were given to a body called the Office of Health Management and later the Skill programme, and then forwarded to an account called the Siptu National Health and Local Authority Levy Fund.
The money involved was substantial. In the 2002 to 2009 period at least €2.7 million was transferred.
Yesterday HSE auditor Dr Geraldine Smith said that when she contacted Siptu’s general secretary (Joe O’Flynn) about the money, he said he did not know anything about it.
The account is 20 years old apparently and has two signatories who are also the account’s two trustees. They are Matt Merrigan and Jack Kelly. Merrigan is head of the health division of Siptu. Kelly has been president of the Dublin Health Services branch of Siptu for almost 30 years and is on the union’s National Executive Council.
At least some of the money was used to fund trips abroad. Dr Smith, through her audit work, has identified 31 trips, including excursions to Hong Kong, Australia and the USA.
She had inadequate records when drafting the list of trips and travellers, in part using people’s recollections. In one case her “source document” for a journey in October 2008 to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK, was the mobile phone records of Alan Smith, who ran the Skill programme and is now retired.
She also had little or no documents to show how the trips came about, what their purpose was, and what result they achieved.
Among those who travelled was Merrigan, Kelly, and other lights from the trade union movements. Officials from the Departments of Finance and Health, who were involved in industrial relations matters, also went on excursions. Bernard Carey, who went on a trip to New York, is now an assistant secretary in the Department of Health.
Tom Dowling, an assistant principal officer with the Department of Finance, went on eight of the trips. Dowling was on the Skill Steering Group that was chaired by former trade unionist Billy Attley. It in essence oversaw the €12 million per annum expenditure on the Skill programme even though it had no statutory basis and its origins are obscure. Merrigan and Kelly were also in the group, as was Carey and employer representatives. Alan Smith reported to the group.
As far as could be ascertained from the evidence to the PAC, it was Merrigan that the Department of Health dealt with when the payments to the Siptu account were being agreed, and Merrigan who received the payments.
Secretary general of the Department of Health and Children Michael Scanlan said there were good reasons for some of the trips, and that people’s superiors knew of them. The issue was that many of the trips appeared to have little to do with the Skill programme, he said. It was how they were funded that was the problem.
Committee member Jim O’Keeffe noted that some trips abroad straddled St Patrick’s Day.
What is clear is that procurement rules and expenditure controls and reporting structures were all completely ignored. It is also clear a wide range of senior people knew about the so-called Siptu fund. The episode shows once again the near complete irrelevance of reporting rules and governance codes.
Conflicts also emerged. As committee member Róisín Shortall noted, Dowling was a Department of Finance official involved in industrial relations who was taken on trips courtesy of funds controlled by Siptu.
The meeting also heard that another avenue of funding for the Siptu account may have come from the Department of the Environment, via something called the Local Authority National Workplace Partnership Group. An inquiry into this is ongoing.
So far the full amount lodged to the account is not known. Siptu is conducting an inquiry that may shed more light on the affair.
The Skill programme was set up to address training needs of non-medical health staff such as healthcare assistants, home-help workers, porters and catering staff. The programme is ongoing and necessary, the committee was told. There was no mention of anyone in any such role being brought on any foreign trips.