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Updated 9pm.
Today further revelations about the finances of the garda college in Templemore were made in front of the Public Accounts Committee. Five top civil servants in the organisation were grilled by politicians about their roles in this controversy. They are:
THE EVIDENCE GIVEN by civil servants of An Garda Siochana to the Public Accounts Committee has been likened to “an episode of Father Ted”.
Sinn Féin’s Mary Lou McDonald said she hasn’t seen anything “quite as shambolic as this”.
It feels like we’re trapped in an episode or even a serious of Father Ted. Nobody is responsible for anything, everybody knew everything yet nobody knew anything, and it’s absolutely astonishing.
A top civil servant in An Garda Síochána today revealed that there are five tax numbers connected to the garda college in Templemore.
The revelation emerged this afternoon in the second Public Accounts Committee hearing on the college’s irregular finances. Five senior civil servants in the organisation appeared before the committee including Chief Administrative Officer Joe Nugent, who told politicians about the five tax numbers connected to Templemore.
He said one was the main An Garda Síochána number and three related to the college’s restaurant, bar and shop. The fifth was for the controversial Sportsfield Co company that an internal audit found was being used to transfer public funds to various external entities, including the Garda Boat Club.
When asked whether each was tax compliant, Nugent told the PAC that the organisation is currently “in discussions with Revenue” about it. He did confirm that the bank account for the bar was closed, but again, when pushed about whether tax returns had been filed up to date for each of these numbers, he said he would “revert on the issue”.
“This is the Public Accounts Committee, it’s not a case of being able to revert”, Labour TD Alan Kelly told Nugent.
If you know an answer and fail to give it, that’s a very serious issue.
Kelly said, “This is a crisis for our country. The evidence that has been given here today, to me, means we have a crisis in our country in relation to the gardaí and our justice system.”
Tension
The session today saw the five civil servants openly contradicting each other’s evidence numerous times. TD Catherine Connolly noted: “People are swimming to save themselves at this point.”
Fianna Fáil Shane Cassells described their exchanges as “bordering on hostility”.
“All from people who are supposed to be on the same side,” he said.
There were particular tensions between the executive director of finance Michael Culhane and two of the other senior civil servants, Niall Kelly, who is head of internal audit and John Barrett, executive director of HR.
Correspondence provided to the committee showed criticisms by Culhane of both of these men. In one letter, he had referred to Kelly’s opinions as “unprofessional, misleading and mischievous”.
Another letter, written to the Commissioner and a number of other top-level gardaí a year ago, questioned whether Barrett might be in breach of Official Secrets Act in posting documents to himself in relation to these irregularities.
Barrett was particularly agitated in today’s hearing, revealing that he tried three times himself and four times through his solicitor to gain access to documents relating to him.
When eventually released to him under the Freedom of Information Act, he said 85% was redacted. This letter about him was, however, handed over to the PAC in its entirety yesterday and this is how Barrett first learned of its existence.
He said it “reflects the situation in its reality” that he had no knowledge of a criminal allegation against him.
Reservations
At one point in the hearing, Labour’s Alan Kelly asked each of the five civil servants in turn whether they had confidence in top management in An Garda Síochána. From Nugent, Culhane and head of legal affairs Ken Ruane he received a simple, “Yes”.
Barrett told the PAC he has “some reservations” and Nially Kelly responded that he had “some questions”.
In his opening statement, the head of internal audit spoke of attempts to undermine him or to influence him to change his audit findings.
He also said there “was and may still be in some parts of An Garda Síochána a culture of not admitting to problems and when these problems persist, trying to keep them in-house and away from transparent public scrutiny”.
Despite his reluctance to express confidence in top management across the board, Kelly did say he has confidence in Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan and in Deputy Commissioner Donal Ó Cúaláin. He is currently conducting further audits in relation to Templemore and he said “doors are being flung open” to facilitate this work.
The Cabra bank account
The final revelation of the hearing came from questioning by Fine Gael’s Josepha Madigan. She asked Barrett whether he was aware of any other bank accounts that haven’t already been discussed.
“I believe there may be some that have not yet been fully audited by Mr Kelly,” he replied, later confirming he was aware an account may exist at an AIB bank in Cabra, north Dublin.
He said his understanding was that this account related to EU funding. When asked by Madigan whether this funding was being used for something other than what it had been meant for, he replied: “I don’t know”.
When the matter was made known to him recently, he said he gave the information to the head of internal audit.
Kelly confirmed he is currently undertaking two additional and specific audits in relation to Templemore’s finances. One relates to EU-funded projects and programmes dating all the way back to 1998. He hopes to have this completed by 13 July, when Commissioner Nóirín O’Sullivan is scheduled to appear back before the committee.
The committee reconvenes at 5pm this evening. You can watch it live here.
Additional reporting by Cliodhna Russell.
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Is this a failed state? Genuinely concerned
@Seany#NoCeta#NoTTIP: Depends on what you mean. For a corrupt banker, politician, or large corporation. It could be considered a resounding success.
Here’s the problem with this great little country:
Frances Fitzgerald, Minister for Justice.
Noireen O’ Sullivan, Garda Commissioner
John Barrett, executive director of human resources and people.
Niall Kelly, head of internal audit.
Michael Culhane, executive director of finance and services.
Ken Ruane, head of legal affairs.
Joe Nugent, chief administrative officer.
The simple, unavoidable and well known reality is that each of the above individuals will retire on pensions which to the rest of us who will be paying for it, would consider to be nothing other than eye watering. Then there will be a tax free lump sum paid out to each individual above that could only be described as Lotto win material.
This is never going to change under FF/FG/Labour, such is the culture of entitlement that these parasites have enabled within our entire public sector community. Until we start electing people who will put themselves forward on a platform of dismantling this culture of complete unaccountability for once and for all, then we are at nothing in this country. As long as this continues, we are repeating the exact same mistakes over and over and over again, as we are seeing with the Garda crisis, housing, healthcare, justice, education/schoolplaces, just to name a few
@Exit Eire: Leo will sort it all when he becomes Tshoch.
@Exit Eire: Anyone outside fg and ff, will be crucified by the compliant meeja. People need to stop whinging and actually vote for change. I get the feeling that most people are either comfortable with the status quo, or are scared of change.
@Exit Eire: You dont pay anymore for their pensions than you do for the criminals currently sitting in Mountjoy.
Gardai pay 7% pension and 7% pension levy then an additional 7% PRSI that funds state pensions, unemployment benefit and health care. Gardai are not entitled to the state pension, its automatically included in the Garda pension and are unlikely to ever qualify for the dole. So really that 7% PRSI isnt doing much for them.
Now consider that a Garda over 30 years pays 21% of his income towards social protection and pension to qualify for a pension of approx 25 per annum (Garda rank, not management)
Next consider the criminal who never worked a day in his life but burgled your house, sold the kids the heroin or whatever is costing the state 100,000 per annum to keep in jail and on being released is automatically entitled to the dole at 200 odd per week then at 65 a pension of 200 odd per week (just over 10,000 per annum each)
You really think the average Garda is doing so amazing? Then join and at Christmas instead of being with your family, you deal with the drunk abusive father or mind his beaten, crying children in the station.
@Karl: we need to not fall into the public v private trap that politicians and the media set us, the rank and file in most jobs are the ones left carrying the can, the shi* rolls down the hill and we all need to stand in solidarity against any injustices perpetrated by those with power
@Exit Eire: well said vote them out. new people = new thinking
@Karl: lots of people mind their beaten kids, are beaten themselves, and deal with drunk abusive partners. all year. and don’t get paid overtime for it. and never get to retire.
@Exit Eire: you forgot all the Nixers they have,,.
beyond a joke, a commissioner with the interest of her own force, would not wait to be forced out. they all went trough templemore then on trough the garda together, there like dysfunctional family lacking any discipline, use the third level education system that we all use to train these people.
@Dáithí Ó Raghallaigh: Garda college is an accredited 3rd level facility and Gardai are awared a BA from UL
More embarrassing corruption stories from the little green island! If your in your in. Rule of law is farcical in this state.
@Polly Dolan: So whatcha gonna do Polly?
@Martin Flood: perhaps we should stop voting the same two showers of g0bshites we have been voting for nearly two decades?
@Martin Flood: She will probably vote FF/FG/LB.and the same old cosy little club.
Watch now how they will push witnesses to say something they don’t mean so it can all be collapsed if it ever goes before a court. WFT is the PAC anyway – if wrong is done start making arrests.
@Phil Swan: yep I see no great good in PAC. There’s a lot of noise and smoke and then nothing
And still nothing on noirin and her magically disappearing phone..
It’s simply ” old school ” policies, the sooner they’re gone the better, right across the board from politicians down.
Five companies registered at Templemore. One is a bar, one is a restaurant. Surely it should be simple to establish if they are tax compliant. Contact Revenue, request details attached to the reg number and analyse returns. It can be done in a day. It’s hard to believe that with companies registered left right and centre, fundings passing between them, auditors in the dark, accounts sitting around with ‘EU funds’ in them that there are is no foul play here. This looks like a stinking can of worms. If this was a private enterprise Revenue would have had an army of inspectors on the case.
@Sean @114: That takes time, if involves accountants carrying out audits of all the income and outgoings (taken into consideration if offsets were genuine or not), checking reciepts and various documents against each other such as declared income compared to till reciepts and inventory costs, etc before eventually reaching a conclusion.
I see your comments here a fair bit Sean and they also show you lack knowledge of the subject you speak about
@Karl: sorry Karl but a simple PAYE audit takes a day. Is the registered company making monthly or quarterly PAYE returns for it’s employees. The deadline for 2016 was Feb 15 and Revenue have been chasing employers since. It’s really quite simple. That’s the first step in checking for PAYE compliance. You are clearly talking about VAT etc which is a different matter but given that there seemed to be ignorance of these 5 companies, a quick PAYE check will confirm if returns are being made and who are registered as employees. Perhaps it’s you who has the knowledge gap.
@Sean @114: Backed up by the guards!
Dodgy cops
New Commissioner, non Irish needed immediately. And get rid of this senior management team too. This is an organisation vital to the security of our nation. The senior civil servant status shouldn’t fly here.
Is it can’t say or won’t say? This is getting more and more embarrassing. Can we just stop it, start again!
There is simply no fixing this place, it’s beyond any help or sorting.
Mafia accountants would be proud of this…. corruption at its finest
This is crazy stuff from the gda force,it’s management has serious questions to answer.the public want to see culprits brought to justice., like every other citizen.not like seany Fitzpatrick.
As we know white collar crime is ignored ,who would know better than the Gardai , One or two people will be “retired ” on full pensions and lump sums ,No one will be in court ,go to jail .Ireland at its worst dont pay a T.V. lience ,go to jail ,bankrupt a country walk free ,misuse public money ,transfer monies to “special accounts ” move along nothing to see here ,we sorted it out ,things have changed . The law like taxes is only for ordinary people ,if you are a member of the “important ” class ,these dont apply to you .
@whitecross: I had a little weed of a chap call to my door recently about a tv licence I may or may not be required to pay…At first, by his demeamour, It felt like I was terror attack suspect. Something seriously wrong about the mentality in Ireland inc.
@whitecross: OK so, let me ask. If you were found guilty of a crime would you expect your punishment to include the inability to retire and also having your pension (which you have paid for and in the case of Gardai actually includes the state pension) removed?
I think not. Especially when you consider a career criminal who has never worked a single day gets 10 grand per year in dole and then at 65 gets the full pension of another 10 per year
Can the guards be trusted with anything?
@Who cares?: I dunno, go to court and watch the rank and file giving evidence and being praised by victims and judges for their good work.
Certainly it would appear Gardai are doing their best when it comes to child welfare
@Karl: watch the rank and file up against Dr Stephen Manning, did you or Joe Doocey or Wayne Nash yeah great job alright.
beyond a joke, a commissioner with the interest of her own force, would not wait to be forced out. they all went through templemore then on through the garda together, there like one big dysfunctional family lacking any discipline, use the third level education system that we all use to train these people. It would save us a fortune..
@Dáithí Ó Raghallaigh: I preferred your “trough” version
Is this the reform that’s coming, ha ha ha, God Help Us.
We seem to have got a real Punch and Judy Show.
: ) Only thing missing was finger pointing and nah nah naaaah , nah nah naaaah, did to, did not.
Wow, is anyone watching this ? Astonishing stuff. Committee room3
Just to put it out there…..not excusing any other story about the guards btw….but this stuff that’s supposed to have happened in Templemore was done TO the lower rank guards. Comments imply that all guards are complicit in wrong doing when this simply isn’t the case..
@Mick Murphy: You are wasting your time Mick, reality doesnt mix when its good aul Garda bashing time
Sure didnt ya know all Gardai retire on a million euros
@Karl: I know Karl….just sticks in my craw a bit when logic isn’t applied. I would never dare excuse corruption in any form and amn’t so naive as to believe it doesn’t exist but every comment is just sticking the boot in. Never see much praise on here for the huge amount of good work the Gardai do, on and off duty. A few bad apples, and it has to be said, along with the media has truly damaged the great relationship the guards had with the Irish public. Every Garda being painted with the one brush. The end result of this will be Gardai less inclined to do their best and much less likely to be involved in community affairs in their own time such as coaching GAA or whatever thereby increasing the wedge that has been driven between them and the people. No one wins in this game.
Ireland is such a greedy corrupt Country!! I don’t know if I could go back & live @ Home again due Corruption lik this & awful High Taxes,Pri*ks like these are lining there own pockets with!!
@colm buckley: where do you live at the minute?
Low farce and high irregularity.
The Laws and Tax are for the little people.
Lad’s Lad’s ,you have broken Rule 1 yez didn’t get your stories straight
It’s time to wrap this up, evidence must be there of all involved.sack them all,and those that helped cover up.no resignations,they do not deserve pension,and maybe the DPP might get things right in their court cases,this time.
@@mdmak33: The DPP do their job, don’t make me laugh lol
Ireland’s keystroke cops at their best! We need to rid the country of O’Sullivan and move appointments away from political control and further change the goalposts to.allow police officers to pay from other countries and get rid of my turn – your turn.
The government don’t represent us. The financial system is a hindrance not a help. The police are the criminals. I for one don’t subscribe to this so called “citizenship”.
What’s the point of having a government when all they can do is write sh!t legislation and impose stupid rules on the population while lining their pockets? What’s the point in having a police force when they’re committing worse crimes than the “ordinary” criminals? I’m serious. Why bother? Would we not be better off organising ourselves?
Sure Look it will all be different when we have a director of policing and not a commissioner they said. Some one the man on the beat can look up to, like these guys.
Hashtag Jokeshop
We are such a corrupt & enept country. No other country in the first world could be so openly abusive towards it’s citizens. There’s a total lack of respect from every player in power: government, council, church and police. They’re immune to prosecution and blatantly lie with every turn because they don’t care and no there will be no consequences. And it will continue so. Utterly symbolic, Republic by name only.
Our goverment is the complete father Ted box set
“A serious of father ted”
Are you guys writing these articles on your phones? Do you have editorial oversight? I proof read emails before i send them. I suggest at a minimum you journalists do the same.
How do you make a revelation? Call the grammar police.
Anyone for Revolution? NO I thought that, just keep electing the same old lifer’s in FF/FG/LB, what a Nation of sheep and masochist’s, they more you kick the electorate the more inclined they are to vote for the same politico’s.
have your say