Who is in charge of slush fund gardai tax accounts?
Police chiefs ordered to find out within 24hours
FIVE top civil servants were grilled for 12 hours on the Garda Templemore slush fund yesterday – but no one could say who was in charge of the accounts. HR boss John Barrett, auditor Niall Kelly, finance chief Michael Culhane, legal affairs head Ken Ruane and admin director Joe Nugent raised more questions than answers as they contradicted each other and evidence from Commissioner Noirin O’sullivan at the Public Accounts Committee. The meeting to investigate the operation of a slush fund at the Garda training college heard the level of public monies abused was between €12.4million and €18million. PAC chairman Sean Fleming demanded to know who was responsible for overseeing tax compliance on four accounts under review by the Revenue. They include the force’s account, the college restaurant, bar, shop and the Sportsfield Co account labelled “the engine” which was allegedly used to divert funds. Mr Fleming said: “Who’s responsible today? Not last year, today? I’m getting blanks.” Mr Nugent replied: “The nub of the problem is there are entities that were not operating as if they were Garda entities. “So if you take Sportsfield Co for example, and the restaurant, they’re separate tax entities.” After some dispute, it was stated the responsibility lay with an Assistant Commissioner but they didn’t know which and were told to deliver the name within 24 hours. Mr Kelly, who conducted the initial audit which uncovered the scandal, said the force’s culture treated the issues as “administrative rather than issues of corporate governance”. He opened the hearing with an attack on attitudes among senior ranks to transparency, uncovering malpractice and management failures. Mr Kelly added: “There was also evident a culture that thinks An Garda Siochana is different from other public sector bodies and the normal processes of financial procedures and transparent democratic accountability do not apply.”