People got ‘good value’ for consultancy services, says former Rehab chief executive

The people who paid him for consultancy services "got very good value", the former Fine Gael trustee and Rehab board member Frank Flannery said yesterday.

Mr Flannery resigned from Rehab and his positions in Fine Gael after it was disclosed in this newspaper that he had been paid by Rehab for lobbying the Government.

"The work I did was properly entered into, contractually, in every respect, and properly dealt with. I am very comfortable that people got good value," he told The Irish Times .

Oversight
He said he did not want to comment further on the controversy over his dealings with the Dáil Public Accounts Committee. PAC was told by Rehab finance director Keith Poole that Mr Flannery was paid €409,744 in professional fees for consultancy services, including lobbying for the group, after he stepped down as chief executive. Much of it was paid by way of a company owned by Mr Flannery, Laragh Consulting, which was incorporated in February 2007 and dissolved two years later for not having filed accounts.

Mr Flannery told The Irish Times that the use of the dissolved company was an oversight and that he would be applying to have the company restored to the Companies Register. A full set of accounts would be given to his solicitors on Monday so they could apply for the restoration, he said.

Nardos Consulting Ltd, another company owned by Mr Flannery, using the same Finglas address, was incorporated in March 2005 and dissolved in January 2009.