By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigative Correspondent
STATE training agency FÁS hired a personal pianist to play in Mary Harney’s hotel suite during a lavish trip to South Africa, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal today.
In the most breathtaking example yet of the minister’s pampering at the expense of Irish taxpayers, FÁS officials arranged for the pianist – dazzling brunette Christine McLeroy – to come to the minister’s suite in one of the coun-try’s most opulent hotels.
There, Miss McLeroy entertained Miss Harney and guests on the Steinway baby grand piano that is the proudest feature of the €2,600-a-night presidential suite. While her repertoire is mostly classical, guests said Miss McLeroy was happy to oblige with renditions of guests’ favourites such as Danny Boy to their great delight.
The revelation will pile pressure on Miss Harney over her propensity for allowing FÁS – which was chaired for four years by her husband – to pick up the bills for her entertainment and grooming on taxpayer-funded trips abroad.
She has already been forced to defend allowing the State training agency to pay hundreds of dollars to have her hair done in her Florida hotel room, as well as picking up the bill for dinners, drinks and limousines during a 2004 visit.
Now the MoS has learned extraordinary details of her trip to South Africa in November 2000 when, as tánaiste and enterprise, trade and employment minister, she was in Cape Town to launch the agency’s Jobs Ireland campaign.
FÁS spared no expense for the lavish trip, during which Miss Harney stayed in the five-star Table Bay Hotel. The room in which she stayed – the Table Mountain Presidential Suite – is on offer today at a cost of €2,636 per night.
Situated on the eighth floor of the hotel overlooking the Atlantic Ocean and with Table Mountain as a backdrop, the luxury suite can seat a full dinner party of eight and has its own Jacuzzi as well as the piano.
Sources say that Miss Harney personally asked for a pianist to play during a drinks party in her suite – a suggestion which her spokesman has refused to confirm or deny.
The surprise request resulted in a panicked last-minute search as FÁS staffers sought a suitable musician.
In the end, a Cape Town entertainment agency recommended by the hotel provided a pianist called Christine McLeroy. Ironically, the hotel already has its own in-house pianist – but he plays only in the lobby.
FÁS’s director general Rody Molloy, its outgoing chairman Patrick Lynch and newly appointed chairman Brian Geoghegan – who married Miss HarHara year later – accompanied the minister on the South Africa trip.
It is not known if the FÁS board members attended the piano funcfuncThe trip took place less than a week after Miss Harney had appointed Mr Geoghegan chairman. Months later, the pair began formally dating and they married the following year.
During the trip, FÁS management are understood to have been particularly anxious to gain approval from Miss Harney for the continuation of their rapidly expanding Jobs Ireland campaign.
‘We were told to pull out all the stops – so we did,’ said one source. ‘The stuff in Florida pales into insignificance compared to this.’
FÁS declined to provide details of the cost of the trip to the MoS this week but a spokesman for Miss Harney said all expenditure and arrangements for the trip had been the responsibility of the State training agency.
According to the spokesman, the event in Miss Harney’s suite was an official reception attended by ‘representatives from companies, members of the wider business community and members of the Irish community in Cape Town’.
‘As would be normal for such events, all the arrangements and organisation for this reception would have been the responsibility of FÁS. The official costs associated with the tánaiste’s visit were the responsibility of FÁS , in line with established procedures,’ he said.
Miss Harney’s spokesman refused to answer questions about whether Miss Harney had personally requested the pianist and how such expenditure could be justified. He was also unable to provide a detailed list of those attending the function.
The latest revelation comes just five days after FÁS director general Molloy resigned when the State training agency was found to have spent more than E640,000 over four years on transatlantic travel promoting its Science Challenge programme.
Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny and Labour Party leader Eamon Gilmore have both called on the entire FÁS board to resign.
One of the most controversial FÁS trips to Florida took place in July 2004 when Miss Harney flew to Cape Canaveral on the Government jet at an estimated cost of €80,000.
The five-day trip saw her complete just one full day of activities and involved considerable leisure time for her and husband Mr Geoghegan.
But this weekend Miss Harney justified the trip during which she incurred a $410 hair salon bill. ‘I was not on a holiday. I was there working,’ she said, adding that she only ‘engaged in legitimate expenses’.
‘I don’t use taxpayers’ money for personal grooming,’ she said. ‘When I am on personal business, I look after my own personal affairs. But clearly, if I’m on official business – and I stress official business – official expenses are paid and any personal expenses I would have on official business would never be claimed.’
In a statement last night, the FÁS board said it intended ‘to strengthen the internal audit function’ within the organisation.
