REHAB’S STRING OF CONTROVERSIES SINCE KERINS ROW

LAY-OFFS Fifteen intellectually disabled workers were laid off by Rehab as it was no longer profitable to employ them. One of the charitable subsidiaries paid many of them only €1.14 per hour to top off a subsidy of €7.95 which was paid by the Government. Many of the workers had been with the recycling plant in Galway for more than 20 years. The workers were informed of the decision in 2012 by letter, though many could not read. Reasons included ‘failure to perform repetitive tasks to customers’ specifications consistently’. KERINS’S PAY Despite repeated calls to reveal her salary, Angela Kerins refused to comply with requests about her pay. Despite this, she eventually told the PAC earlier this year, but even in revealing her salary as €240,000, it still led to more questions. The PAC still doesn’t know, for example, what her salary in 2012 and 2013 was. GROUP SALARIES Rehab Group have always defended their reluctance to divulge senior staff salaries by saying they are not a State-run group of companies. Even when admitting recently that they will reveal senior staff pay, they still refused to do it this year, instead waiting until next year. SHAREHOLDING Another fact to emerge is Ms Kerins’s husband Seán’s shareholding in a Rehab-related firm. She told the PAC he quit his position as director of Complete Eco Solutions, she did not mention his ownership of 50 of the 150 shares in the company. SCRATCHCARDS A Dept of Justice-commissioned audit into Rehab revealed scratchcard sales of nearly €4million had a profit of just over €9,400.