Deaf charity’s €100k spend on lavish gifts
CREDIT cards at a charity funded by the HSE were used to buy lavish gifts, rare whiskey and vouchers for Michelin star restaurants, a damning audit has found.
Financial controls at the Catholic Institute for Deaf People were found to be ‘inadequate’ by a HSE Internal Audit Report published yesterday.
It found that more than €102,000 had been spent on the cards that had not been checked, authorised or approved.
Nearly €29,000 of this went specifically on gifts, including a €155 bottle of whiskey and a spend of €1,250 for Michelin-starred restaurant Chapter One in the capital.
The report found that a ‘significant amount of control was vested in the head of finance’. This was the charity’s highest paid employee, with a total package that ranged from €106,600 to €161,740 from 2012 to 2015.
The damning audit also found that the CEO’s salary of €123,000 was €12,000 more than the HSE’s permitted pay scale for this grade.
The charity had nine credit cards, according to the report, which examined in detail the two credit cards belonging to the CEO and head of finance. These were also examined during the auditor’s trawl and it was found that over two years, over €102,000 was spent unchecked.
Other lavish gifts included a number of One 4 All vouchers totalling almost €22,500.
The report reads: ‘The former CEO stated that during his tenure he neither sought nor received any increase in salary or bonus of any sort.’
The report also found that the head of finance had a total remuneration of €525,430 between 2012 and 2015. This included a €92,000 salary – €12,000 over the HSE payscale. And the rest of his remuneration was cited as coming from salary increases, bonus payments, and other contributions. The charity received €17.8m in taxpayer’s money from the HSE from 2012 to 2015, representing almost 90% of their income. Both the CEO and head of finance resigned in 2015. Geraldine Tallon, CIDP chairwoman since last April, said yesterday that the organisation had made ‘many changes in 2016’ and stated that they fully accept the findings of the audit.