BID TO CLOSE SCHOOL WAS HALTED
THE future of St Augustine’s has been in the balance since June 2016 when management at St John of God suddenly announced it would close.
It came just two weeks after bosses at the charity spent more than €23,000 sending six staff members to a conference at a luxury resort in Florida.
At the time of the trip the charity – which received more than €100m annually from the HSE – was just four weeks from running out of money and was considering defaulting on Revenue payments.
The Florida visit infuriated parents of those who use the charity’s services and on-theground staff who have been hit by major cutbacks. One of the executives on that trip was Sharon Balmaine who, as head of human resources at the time, was responsible for dealing with the HR concerns of Mark Smyth.
Mrs Balmaine was among the dozen St John of God executives who shared in millions of secret top-ups as first revealed by this newspaper. In a direct intervention to prevent the closure of St Augustine’s in 2016, the HSE, Minister Harris and Disabilities Minister Finian McGrath promised no cuts would be made until a full review of services is completed. That is expected next year. In his Protected Disclosure to Minister Harris last year Mr Smyth said he believed the 2016 attempt to close St Augustine’s had been prompted by the safety and safeguarding issues he was raising internally with management at the time. His disclosure reads: ‘It is my belief that the attempted closure of St Augustine’s healthcare services on the 25th May 2016 came as a result of numerous meetings between senior management and me.’ Last year, the MoS revealed St Augustine’s ex-principal, Brother Aidan Clohessy, had been the subject of repeated abuse claims for which payouts were made to former pupils.
The allegations were covered up by the the order which then sent Brother Aidan to Malawi where he lived and worked with children for decades – even as his order promised the authorities here that he had no association with minors. top-ups: