THE COUNTRY’S largest trade union, Siptu, suffered “significant reputational damage” as a result of perceived association with a controversial bank account into which millions of euro in State funding was lodged as part of the Skill training programme, an internal report has said.
The report, by a subcommittee of the union’s trustees, has found Siptu leaders had no knowledge that one of its senior officials, Matt Merrigan, and former national executive member Jack Kelly had opened a bank account known as the Siptu national health and local authority levy fund in 1998.
It says they were unaware nearly €4.5 million was paid into the account in grants and payments from the Department of Health, the HSE and a local authority partnership body. The report reveals for the first time that a €100,000 payment from Beaumont Hospital was also lodged in the account.
Funding drawn from the account was used to pay for more than 30 foreign trips undertaken by senior civil and public servants as well as by union officials. The report says the money lodged to the account was not for the benefit of the union.
The report states that the trustees’ investigation had shown that Siptu’s “mechanisms of accountability were not sufficiently robust and that there were shortcomings in the oversight and reporting mechanisms within the union that should be addressed as a matter of priority”.
The report also says that “significant reputational damage has been inflicted on Siptu by perceived association with the administration of this fund and also by the lack of proper governance exercised by those who had responsibility for the disbursement of public money”.
It says that public bodies that paid money into the account failed to adhere to basic standards of governance and accountability.
Siptu president Jack O’Connor said yesterday that the balance of €697,894 remaining in the account would be repaid to the public purse.
Siptu general secretary Joe O’Flynn said that the union would now be engaging a senior counsel to examine issues surrounding its employment relationship with Mr Merrigan. He expected a report to be completed within weeks.
The Siptu report says that the bulk of the money in the account was used to pay for training shop stewards and activists.
The report says that those within Siptu who had knowledge of the trips believed that they were directly funded by State agencies while those in State agencies believed that they were arranged and paid for by a fund controlled by Mr Merrigan.
In his first comments on the controversy Mr Merrigan said over 5,000 people had received training.
He told Siptu in a written statement, also published yesterday, that spending on travel and accommodation accounted for less than 11 per cent of the total amount.
The report also confirms that Mr Merrigan received a letter from the then minister for health Micheál Martin in 2004 confirming that nearly €190,000 was being made available for “frontline supervisor training”.