Former priest who’s had more than a brief f lirtation with controversy

THE secretary general of the Irish Red Cross, Liam O’Dwyer, is no stranger to controversy.

Mr O’Dwyer, who took up his post in 2015, was formerly the chief executive of a charity for the deaf whose credit card was used to pay for meals in Michelinstarred restaurants, gift vouchers and a €155 bottle of whiskey.

A scathing HSE audit into the operations of the Catholic Institute for Deaf People (CIDP) revealed Mr O’Dwyer, as the CEO of that organisation, was paid an annual salary of €123,000, ‘well in excess of the HSE management scale of €110,183 for that grade’.

The HSE audit also found that Mr O’Dwyer knew of controversial bonus payments made to Bernard McGlade, the charity’s then head of finance/ COO. Mr McGlade was also paid in excess of approved HSE pay scales for his role at the charity.

The website of the Irish Red Cross, points to how Mr O’Dwyer ‘oversaw the development of the €15m Deaf Village Ireland project on the Navan Road in Dublin’.

The former priest was also involved in overseeing an investigation, while at the CIDP, into how the Red Cross did not discover 49 unreported accounts holding €214,000 for victims of the tsunami. Following an internal review, that probe found the Red Cross did not have enough staff or management controls in place to deal with the huge response to the tsunami appeal.

They said they believed ‘there was no attempt to hide or retain the money’. But the then chairman of the Irish Red Cross, David O’Callaghan, admitted: ‘The report shows serious deficiencies in our accounting procedures.’

He also served as a general assembly member of the Irish Red Cross, on the finance committee, and was chair of their audit committee. He was also chief executive of the Irish League of Credit Unions and the national director of Vincent de Paul.