Ex-Garda boss ‘told Justice of funds scandal nine years ago’

HANDWRITTEN notes, from nine years ago, show how the then Garda Commissioner had warned the Justice Department about the Templemore Garda training college financial scandal.

The historic institution has been under the spotlight since details of an internal audit were published in March, which revealed its accounts from January 2009 to March 2016, when €112million was spent.

It found the college had been renting out land it didn’t own and was operating 50 bank accounts, with cash from some of them not being used for the purpose for which they were created.

In one instance, more than a third of spending, some €59,000, from what was called a ‘laundry and services account’ had nothing to do with cleaning clothes. Some of it was used to pay for entertainment.

A number of documents have been handed to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee, which is examining the financial irregularities there.

The notes, kept by former Commissioner Fachtna Murphy, seem to indicate that he had a direct meeting with the Secretary General of the Department of Justice at Garda Headquarters on June 6, 2008, almost exactly nine years ago.

Under the heading ‘Urgent’, Commissioner Murphy wrote that the financial ‘arrangements’ at Templemore should be addressed ‘as a matter of urgency’. This was in correspondence replying to the Garda’s Chief Administrative Office, on May 8, 2008. There are also two handwritten notes saying: ‘Discussed at meeting with Sec Gen Noel Waters…’ and ‘Discussed briefly with the Sec Gen at HQ… agreed to hold meeting to discuss the issues at Justice.’

It then gives details of when the meeting at the department was scheduled to take place, indicating that he (the Commissioner) would be there, along with the Secretary General and the Chief Administrative Officer.

Other material from the ex-chief’s files indicate that he later took wide advice on the matter.

Included in the notes of this advice is a claim that a named financial accountant at the department’s internal audit had ‘advised extensively on the arrangements at Templemore. A private meeting of the PAC yesterday heard expressions of amazement at the contents of the written materials now in its possession, in the light of evidence previously given before it.

The new correspondence is also understood to include a letter from Michael Culhane, the Garda’s Executive Director of Finance, to the head of internal audit, Niall Kelly, a month before the internal audit was released in March.

Mr Culhane claimed that Mr Kelly had said, on numerous occasions, that the problems at Templemore were so serious that people would be taken away in handcuffs.

He also alleged that Mr Kelly compared the situation at the Templemore college to the scandalhit charity Console.

The PAC has now scheduled a programme of meetings to take further evidence on the Templemore scandal. Next Wednesday it will hear from a series of Garda witnesses.

Revealed in notes from ex-Garda boss