Why is he a trustee?
Matt Merrigan sat on the pensions committee of Stewarts hospital despite never having been elected or employed by the organisation
QUESTIONS have been asked of controversial former union official Matt Merrigan’s role as a trustee of Stewarts Hospital’s Pension Fund as it provided three different versions of events within six weeks to the Irish Mail on Sunday.
It is the latest controversy to hit the hospital — one of the country’s largest disability centres.
The MoS reported in January that CEO Gerry Mulholland was an internal appointment.
Car allowances of between €12,200 and €16,120 at Stewarts ended last year after an internal HSE audit of voluntary agencies, but seven further ‘top-up’ roles at Stewarts are under discussion.
Mr Merrigan’s status as a pension trustee was revealed under a Freedom of Information (FOI) request by this newspaper, despite the fact that he never worked in the hospital, and it is unclear who appointed him to the role.
In 2010 it emerged he was a signatory to the SIPTU National
‘Well, you’ll still be confused tomorrow’
Health and Local Authority levy y fund account, set up to provide e funding of more than €4m for r training for low-level workers.
But investigations by the HSE, , SIPTU and the financial auditor r found extensive spending on for- eign trips and restaurants as well.
A spokesman said: ‘The matter is s under assessment by the Garda a Bureau of Fraud Investigation and d we cannot comment further.’
At his Dublin home yesterday, he e declined to say who had nominated d him or on what basis he was a Pen- sion trustee of the fund.
Asked to clear up the confusion, he smiled and said: ‘Well, you’ll still be confused tomorrow.’
It is unclear who nominated Mr Merrigan to the board, or how long he had been a trustee.
Mr Merrigan had reason to be familiar with the hospital. Minutes of the Irish Ambulance Representative Council meetings, held at Stewarts, show he was a regular visitor to the Palmerstown campus in his former role as union officer.
The FOI documents include Stewarts Pension Fund Annual report For 2012, which lists Mr Merrigan as a trustee. Stewarts management confirmed his status as current in a meeting with the MoS in March.
When the hospital released the pension documents as it was legally obliged to, it flagged one change to the 2012 board.
Asked six weeks ago if there were other changes to the names listed, management said no.
But last week when asked to clarify that ‘M Merrigan’ is the same man, the hospital said in a written statement: ‘Matt Merrigan was a trustee of the pension fund nominated by SIPTU when he was an official there. He retired from SIPTU in late 2012 and formally resigned as a trustee of the Pension Fund in July 2013.’
But a SIPTU spokesman vehemently denied that, saying: ‘That is a private company, he was not there in any capacity for SIPTU. He was not put on by SIPTU. That is not a function of the union.’
‘He was not there in any capacity for SIPTU’
He added Mr Merrigan retired in 2012, so union activities ceased. When the MoS returned to Stewarts to clarify its position, spokesman Padraig McKeon said it was his mistake and had misinter- preted what he was told — although he admitted that Stewarts Hospital had okayed the final statement.
He said: ‘It is my misinterpretation of what they told me. They saw it, and they let it go but it was my misinterpretation. It was an honest mistake.’
He added that he had meant that Mr Merrigan was representing staff at the hospital.
Multiple sources said no vote to elect him was publicised in the hospital, and were at a loss to explain his connection to it. The Dáil Public Accounts Committee wants to compel Mr Merrigan to appear and discuss the training fund, but he has declined due to the Garda investogation.
John McGuinness of the Dáil Public Accounts Committee said Mr Merrigan ‘ should have at least volunteered to stand back during the course of that year. I’m not saying he did anything wrong. These organisations and hospitals, they need to be conscious of what good governance means.’
The HSE has given all voluntary hospitals until July 1 to end unapproved salary top-up payments.