A Valuations Office employee went on maternity leave with more than €6,600 in cash and cheques received at the agency's public office, the Dáil's Public Accounts Committee has been told.
When the incident came to light, officials recovered €4,528 but more than €2,096 is still outstanding as some cheques went out of date. The employee was demoted from her position after an internal inquiry.
John Deasy (FG) levelled heavy criticism at officials from the valuations office when they appeared yesterday before the committee in Leinster House. He criticised the leniency of the penalty: "It's hard to be fired from the Civil Service, isn't it?"
Valuations commissioner Aidan Murray, who said the incident was not reported to the Garda, claimed that it was difficult to establish if it could amount to theft because the employee had made some efforts to lodge the money. He said new procedures meant one person would not be in charge of receiving, recording and lodging money from the public office.
"I fully accept that these errors and shortcomings at the time were fairly fundamental and I'm satisfied that they have since been corrected," Mr Murray said.
"In terms of this being an organisation that is drifting or derelict or losing its way, I don't believe that is the case."
Mr Deasy further claimed that only 36 specific valuation requests out of a batch of 457 received between 1998-2005 were completed. He also pointed to an underspend in allocated administration funding of €2.2 million in 2002 and €2.8 million in 2003.
"All of this money hasn't been used and at the same time a massive backlog of work is being left there. There must be some serious industrial relations problems."
The committee was discussing financial shortcomings highlighted by the Comptroller and Auditor General's 2002 report on the office, which values commercial and industrial properties to calculate local authority rates.