Garda chiefs find hidden college fund

A BANK account not disclosed to an audit committee investigating the Garda Training College has been found by Garda management, the Irish Mail on Sunday has learned.

A senior administrator at Phoenix Park HQ is said to have made the find. There have been a number of inquiries into the college’s finances down the years, but the true scale of the mismanagement was revealed in Irish Mail on Sunday last month.

Among the more shocking revelations was the confirmation that the college in Templemore, Co. Tipperary, held a large number of bank accounts which management did not voluntarily disclose. As many as 50 accounts were revealed to be connected to the college.

A Garda source said: ‘Since they had to drag the information about accounts out of them it is not a surprise that this has been discovered.’

An interim report from the Garda Internal Audit Section revealed a litany of breaches of law and accepted business practice.

The college was found to have large sums on deposit in special ‘elevated’ accounts which offered enhanced interest rates to special customers, while the college restaurant was used as a multi-purpose cash source for ‘non-restaurant’ payments.

The restaurant has paid no tax and may have a ‘significant liability going back many years’, the report found.

‘It is not a surprise that this has been discovered’