Rehab gets extra State funding from departments

COLM KEENA

The funding received by the Rehab Group from the exchequer is substantially greater than had previously been supposed.

While it had been thought the organisation receives approximately €50 million per year, mostly from the Health Service Executive but also from the Department of Justice, it also receives almost €30 million a year from the Department of Education and Skills.

Most comes for services provided through Solas, formerly Fás, by the Rehab subsidiary, National Learning Networks. Rehab received fees of €27 million for this work last year. The department also paid approximately €839,000 to Rehab for literacy training and recycling services.

Chief executive
Rehab chief executive, Angela Kerins, is on the board of the National Learning Networks Ltd, as is Rehab director, Frank Flannery. Mr Flannery got fees of €66,000 from the Rehab Group in 2012 for work he did on projects in Europe.

He charged for the work through Laragh Consulting Ltd, a company that was incorporated in 2007 and dissolved in 2009, without having filed accounts.

On Wednesday he told this newspaper that the non-filing of the accounts was an oversight but that the company’s tax affairs were in order.

Mr Flannery had a second management consultancy company at the same address in Finglas, Dublin, some years ago, which was dissolved for the non-filing of accounts. Nardos Consulting Ltd was incorporated in 2005 and dissolved in 2009.