Garda college faces refunding EU €15k in interest on grants

THE Garda Training College is likely to have to repay the EU Commission €15,000 in interest that accumulated from funding provided by the EU and the European Police College for training courses.

An internal audit is currently being compiled by senior civilian gardaí into EU funding which was provided to the Templemore college, with the audit due to be completed in the next four weeks.

It comes after the Mail revealed how it has been alleged that the same EU funding was redirected from the college to a Dublin bank account and then allegedly used for entertainment purposes. Now it has emerged that €15,000 worth of interest was built up on the money after it was placed in a deposit account.

A 2017 audit into financial affairs at the college has said that the money may have to be refunded to the European Audit author: Niall Kelly Commission. However, a draft report of that same audit, seen by the Mail, has revealed that the Garda finance boss Michael Culhane believed that the money should not be refunded to the EU and should instead go back into gardaí.

At one stage, there was €1.5million in four accounts set up to manage EU funds including from Cepol, which is informally known as the EU police college.

In the course of the 2017 Templemore audit, four bank accounts related to EU-funded projects or CEPOL were found. Two were current accounts and two were deposit accounts. At the time of the audit, the interest on these accounts had reached €15,000.

Niall Kelly, the author of the financial review, wrote: ‘It is a basic tenet of European Financial Controls that member states cannot benefit from interest payments on European Funds held on deposit.’

However, Mr Culhane argued in a proposed amendment to the draft report that there was ‘no basis for refunding’ this interest money to the EU, saying that instead the money belonged to the gardaí.

In response, Mr Kelly said he took advice from the European Court of Auditors on the matter.

Mr Culhane argued that the EU-funded schemes and associated monies had been audited by the EU – but the head of internal audit Mr Kelly said he had not been provided with these audits.

A document supplied in recent weeks to the Dáil’s Public Accounts Committee has revealed that plans to return the €15,000 interest to the EU commission are in train. They are temporarily on hold until Mr Kelly completes his audit on the EU funding.

The Mail has also seen a 2006 report on the college’s finances, which said that because the EU funding accounts did not administer public monies, it was not the subject of an internal audit at the time.

Last week, the Mail revealed that questions have now been raised by Fine Gael’s Josepha Madigan about the potential siphoning off of these EU funds into a Dublin bank account. During a meeting of the PAC, she asked John Barrett, the civilian head of Garda human resources, if he was aware of the hiving off of EU funds to the account.

During the meeting Ms Madigan asked Mr Barrett if he was aware of any other bank accounts belonging to the Garda College which had, as of yet, not been disclosed.

He said he believed there were further accounts which had not yet been audited.

Comment – Page 12 jennifer.bray@dailymail.ie

‘No basis for repaying EU’