Secret Service fund open to all ministers, PAC told

Any Government minister can seek to draw funding from the Secret Service allocation as long as it is for information in relation to the security of the State, the Secretary General of the Department of Finance has revealed.

Addressing the Public Accounts Committee yesterday, Mr Tom Considine said he did not know what the money drawn from the Secret Service fund was used for.

He said that under the rules, a minister requested money from the fund from the Minister for Finance.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, told the committee that the money in the Secret Service fund was held in a separate bank account to other Exchequer funds.

Mr Joe Higgins of the Socialist Party asked whether the money was used to pay for burgers and chips for secret agents who were staking out suspects.

Mr Considine did not know.

Mr Higgins asked whether only the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Defence could draw money from the Secret Service allocation. Mr Considine said he did not believe that "there was a bar on any minister seeking money from the fund, as long as it was for information relating to the security of the State".

Mr Higgins suggested the money was used "to pay off informers".

Mr Considine said he could not add to what he had already said.

In 2003, nearly €440,000 out of a total of €831,000 that had been voted by the Dáil for the Secret Service fund had been returned unspent to the Exchequer.