A TD has said that despite assurances to the contrary by the Southern Health Board (SHB), senior board officials have confirmed that community welfare funds were used to pay traffic fines for families in the west Cork area.
In a statement yesterday, the SHB denied that court fines had ever been paid by any of its officials. It wished to refute specifically the suggestion that new age travellers had received monies from the community welfare fund to discharge court debts.
A SHB spokeswoman said that under specific programmes, once the necessary criteria had been met, families could receive financial help. In a recent case, she added, a mother of eight children had been given financial help to pay back an outstanding loan.
However, Mr Batt O'Keeffe, Fianna Fail TD for Cork South Central, told The Irish Times yesterday that following a complaint made to him, he contacted the Southern Health Board last Thursday and asked for an official briefing on the situation.
Mr O'Keeffe said that a senior official of the board's headquarters in Cork then made contact with another senior official in west Cork. He was told subsequently that two fines - one a £300 fine for not having car insurance, and the other (£50) in respect of a traffic offence charge against a member of the travelling community - had been paid by the board.
Mr O'Keeffe said the official told him the reason the fines were paid was that it would cost the board even more if the £300 fine - went unpaid - a mother of eight children in the west Cork area would have to go to prison, leaving the board to take care of her family.
"I didn't dream this up," said Mr O'Keeffe. "I contacted the board in an official capacity and this is the information I was given. I knew nothing about the mother of eight or the £300 fine, or the £50 fine for that matter; this was information supplied to me as a public, representative.
"I find it extraordinary that the board would now claim it did not happen, and I intend to raise the matter in the Dail. I was told that the £300 was given to a settled family in west Cork and that the £50 went to a travelling family.
"My understanding was that the information had been gleaned from a senior board source in west Cork and was being made available to me in my official capacity," he added.