THE HEAD of the controversial HSE Skill training programme retired early on an enhanced pension at about the same time that an internal audit into the scheme got under way.
The scheme, described by members of the Dáil’s public accounts committee as a “slush fund”, was heavily criticised following an audit that uncovered a catalogue of waste of taxpayers’ money and serious breaches of corporate governance.
HSE official Alan Smith was general manager of the Skill training scheme until the end of March 2009, when he availed of early retirement and an enhanced pension package. Under the deal, he was given a pension with at least five added years’ service.
The chairman of the public accounts committee, Bernard Allen TD, earlier this month questioned how some officials involved in the Skill scheme could retire early from their respective positions while question marks still surrounded some of their actions.
Mr Smith was eligible for this early retirement scheme on foot of an agreement between the HSE and the trade union Impact reached several years ago. This allowed management officials affected by the streamlining of health services that followed the replacement of the old health boards by the HSE to apply for early retirement with enhanced pensions.
About 40 officials successfully applied for the scheme. All the cases were approved by an independent adjudicator, former trade union leader Phil Flynn.
Mr Smith’s early retirement was also formally signed off by the HSE’s director of national resources, Seán McGrath, and the Department of Health.
The public accounts committee heard earlier this month that concerns within the HSE over the scheme were first raised in 2008 and an audit got under way in the early part of 2009. This audit was sought by Mr McGrath.
“As part of discussions, I sought an internal audit of the Skill programme. It was put on the schedule and operated in early 2009,” Mr McGrath told the committee.
As well as serious breaches of corporate governance, an audit report into the Skill scheme found that public money was used to pay for 31 “study” trips to a number of locations across the globe.
As head of the Skill programme, Mr Smith travelled on 22 trips. The public accounts committee heard that one of these was a multi-location trip to the US, Australia, Hong Kong and the UK.
Mr Smith is one of a number of officials who has been asked to appear before the public accounts committee to help shed more light on how the scheme operated.
Mr Allen said last week there was a need to follow-up on those responsible for administering and running the Skill programme, even where these officials had retired.
He said in a statement: “The committee will get to the bottom of what has already been described as a slush fund, which was under the control of senior union officials who worked in unison with senior public servants.”
Meanwhile, Department of Health assistant secretary Bernard Carey has written to the internal audit section of the HSE clarifying he had paid for his wife’s flights when she accompanied him on trips to Boston, Savannah and New York in 2007, 2008 and 2009, relating to the Skill programme.