By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
A senior manager in Bus Éireann’s school transport scheme has admitted he accepted a banned gift from a contractor.
Rory Moylan, former chief clerical officer in Limerick’s school transport office, was investigated and disciplined for accepting a stay in a five-star hotel against internal rules but he kept his rank and pay grade and was moved to another job.
The revelation comes as Bus Éireann this week released a report into allegations of corruption and bribes for routes. The report was ordered by three ministers last month after the MoS revealed a secret tape of a whistleblower being interviewed by a Bus Éireann investigation team.
The tape appeared to contradict a letter that Bus Éireann CEO Martin Nolan sent to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee in February in which he claimed the whistleblower had withdrawn his allegations.
But this week’s report does not deal with a number of further allegations – and supporting evidence – that the ongoing MoS investigation into the €166m school transport scheme has uncovered. The investigation has uncovered five whistleblowers in three areas alleging regular cash bribes, free holidays or hotel stays.
These further allegations were last week sent by the Transport Committee to gardaà for investigation. Appearing before the committee Mr Nolan defended company procedures, saying all employees were given the internal code of conduct.
‘All employees have to sign that they have received it and that they understand it,’ he said.
He confirmed that five employees had been disciplined for breaches of the code in the past three years. He did not elaborate on what sanctions were applied.
But as the MoS can reveal today, the sanctions applied to Rory Moylan had little impact on his career. Mr Moylan’s punishment consisted of a temporary letter on his employment file and a transfer to Limerick’s Expressway office.
The MoS spoke to the contractor who gave Mr Moylan the hotel voucher, former Galway hurler Tony Kilkenny, who said it was a thankyou, similar to gifts he had given many times before for contracts.
As chief clerk in Limerick, Mr Moylan was responsible for allocating school routes worth millions to private operators throughout Galway, Limerick and Clare.
In 2010, he accepted a voucher from Mr Kilkenny for an overnight stay at the G Hotel, Galway city’s only five-star hotel. Bus Éireann investigated Mr Moylan – but protected his identity – after an inspector raised concerns. Despite being reprimanded, he kept his rank and his pay grade when he moved to Expressway. ‘I’m still paid the same and, hand on heart, I have it a lot easier now than what I was doing. There was a
lot more work there, a lot more stress,’ Mr Moylan told the MoS. Asked how he had been disciplined, he said: ‘I think they put a letter in my file for 12 months… along with probably more. It was a difficult time but I worked through the whole thing. I put in 55-, 60-hour weeks during the investigation because I still do not believe I was wrong.’ In 2011, Mr Moylan was restricted from acting as a company director when a family firm was wound up following a petition by the Revenue Commissioners.
Mr Moylan claims he was not made aware of the code of conduct and it appears that this is why he avoided further sanction.
According to the code, all staff must refuse all ‘bribes, gifts, hospitality, benefits or offers of preferential treatment which may affect one’s ability to make independent judgment and report any such approaches in writing to one’s superior.’ Gifts in excess of €70 must be declared, gifts worth more than €130 are forbidden, as is the acceptance of overnight accommodation. But Mr Moylan said: ‘That wasn’t made available to me at the time. It was made evident to me afterwards.’ Mr Moylan had also attracted attention because his wife was a driver for another private operator who was awarded school routes by the Limerick office. His brother too was awarded a school route by the Limerick office. Mr Moylan said he could see why people might think there could be impropriety though he denied any wrongdoing: ‘Now I can, yeah. I can, yeah, okay. But they went through the same thing as everybody else. The applications went in. The paper trail is there. My wife was driving for a contractor. She didn’t have the route. He signed the contract. She was driving.’ Mr Moylan said his brother’s route was signed off by another official.
Mr Kilkenny told the MOS he often provided thank-yous to those responsible for allocating his routes and saw nothing wrong with it.
‘That’s what I do,’ he said when we approached him at his home near Ballinasloe.
‘If you do me a favour – mechanics and everyone – we’d buy ould chocolates, stuff like that. I sent him a voucher for the G Hotel, which I’d do for every single person down there in his role all my life.’ Mr Kilkenny, who still operates a number of Bus Éireann school routes, added: ‘I’d have done it for every contract I ever had, so there’d be nothing specific to him.
‘I do it to all my contractors. I did it to CIE this year. If you do me a favour tomorrow, you’ll get a voucher this Christmas because it’s the only time of the year that we have to say, “Listen, thanks”.’ Mr Kilkenny said the G Hotel voucher would have been for dinner and accommodation. ‘They’d be the equivalent of a dinner and a room for the night – €100 to €200. We’ve never given much more than €200.
‘I never thought it was bribe. It was a thank you. I can remember them coming to me and saying, “Can you clarify this?” ‘There was nothing corrupt. You can go back further than Rory and you can keep going back.’ Mr Moylan also denied that the hotel voucher was a bribe.
‘I can tell you hand on heart that I have never and will not ever take any bribe for anything. No way. Absolutely no way would I do it. I wouldn’t entertain it,’ he said.
He said he had once been offered a ‘wedge’ of cash by a private operator but declined it. ‘I ran the man out of the office and that came up during the investigation,’ he said.
In statement, the company said: ‘Bus Éireann does not comment on individual employees or individual contractors. The company has a Code of Business Ethics for its employees – most recently updated in 2013 – that precludes the acceptance of bribes, gifts, hospitality, benefits or offers of preferential treatment, that could influence independent judgement.
‘The company recently completed a report into allegations of misconduct by a small number of Bus Éireann employees, which was requested by the Department of Transport… and the Department of Education. It concluded there was no evidence to support these allegations.’
iosinvestigations@gmail.com COMMENT page 21 ‘For my part, I still do not believe I was wrong’ What the report actually investigated ON Sunday, April 12, we reported that whistleblowers had alleged Bus Éireann managers had received kickbacks for bus-route contracts.
The following day, three ministers called for a full report ‘on this matter’. This Wednesday, Bus Éireann published a report into the ‘background to allegations of misconduct’.
Surely this implies that the company merely compiled a report on the information it already had in its possession and the contents of a taped conversation between a Bus Éireann official and a bus contractor that we provided to them.
Subsequent to the request from the ministers, we know that the company did not speak to either of the two whistleblowers who fell within the remit of the report.
What the report fails to address THE Bus Eireann report released this week does not deal with a number of matters which the ongoing Irish Mail on Sunday investigation into the school transport scheme has revealed.
For example, it does not deal with: ¦ Claims by a family-run bus company that they bought their way into the school transport scheme for £28,000 in a deal that allegedly involved kickbacks going to Bus Éireann officials. The MoS has obtained documentary evidence such as bank drafts, receipts and bank statements to back up the claims.
Claims by another operator that he paid for a holiday to Spain for a Bus Éireann official in return for keeping his school transport routes. The same operator also claims to have provided overnight accommodation at top hotels for Bus Éireann officials. The MoS has obtained Visa bills and hotel bookings that back up these claims.
Claims by two further operators in different parts of the country that they paid cash for routes.
Claims by yet another operator that he was put under pressure to pay a bribe as his contracts were being discussed.
These matters have been forwarded to gardaà for investigation by Bus Éireann and also to the Oireachtas Transport Committee.
Inaccurate? Unfair? Selective? How Bus Éireann’s charges really stack up
By: Michael O’Farrell
BUS Éireann’s report into allegations of kickbacks for school routes makes very serious charges against the Irish Mail on Sunday and includes the accusation that our coverage was ‘inaccurate, unfair and selectively quotes or exaggerates the material to sensationalise the overall article’.
We stand over everything we have published and below we counter some of the assertions that Bus Éireann has made against us.
BUS ÉIREANN REPORT SAYS ‘The former contractor did withdraw much of what he claimed.’
MAIL ON SUNDAY SAYS The contractor clarified certain points but he maintained throughout the interview that he had made improper payments and that he believed he had lost his contracts because he refused to contribute to a holiday whip-round. Bus Éireann’s own analysis finds that 65% of the contractor’s claims were not withdrawn. The report’s conclusion that there is no evidence of corruption relies heavily on Bus Éireann’s assertion that ‘certain allegations were withdrawn’ without specifying which ones.
REPORT SAYS Tim Doyle, Brian Lynch and their company, Student Transport Scheme Ltd, have orchestrated and ‘drip fed’ information to the MoS to pursue a ‘commercial objective’ which is being ‘hidden behind a topical whistleblowing tag to attempt to damage Bus Éireann’s reputation’.
MOS SAYS Our coverage has not been orchestrated in any way by any commercial party. We met the operators ourselves and in each case they agreed to provide the MoS with copies of affidavits.
We investigated these – and claims made by others – and independently uncovered documentary evidence to corroborate anything we have published since.
This was a long and difficult process, as for many months at a time certain whistleblowers were too afraid of the consequences for their livelihood if they spoke to us.
REPORT SAYS The MoS inaccurately reported that Martin Nolan’s letter to the PAC said that no Bus Éireann employees would be disciplined.
MOS SAYS Martin Nolan’s letter to the PAC does say no employees will be disciplined. ‘The investigation team could find no basis for instigating any disciplinary proceedings,’ it reads. This line is even highlighted in bold in the letter.
REPORT SAYS The Bus Éireann employees against whom allegations of gifts, services or cash were made denied the allegations and there was no other additional evidence provided or available to substantiate the allegations.
MOS SAYS The original allegations contained in the affidavit sent to Bus Éireann alleged that a named operator had a credit card statement showing flight bookings for a Bus Éireann official.
This document – which the MoS obtained months ago – could have been uncovered had Bus Eireann asked gardaà to investigate.
REPORT SAYS The MOS misquoted Mr Nolan’s letter to the PAC by reporting that he had written that the whistleblower ‘had stated that the manner in which he lost his school contract was legitimate and fair’. The report says that the words ‘legitimate and fair’ are not a direct quote.
MOS SAYS The MOS quoted the letter correctly. Mr Nolan’s letter to the PAC states the following: ‘He [the contractor] further stated that the manner in which he lost the schools contract – in a competitive tender – was legitimate and fair.’ In contrast the contractor never once concedes on the secret tape that he lost his contract fairly.
REPORT SAYS The MOS incorrectly reported that the original whistleblower’s affidavit ‘alleged that brown envelopes containing cash and airline tickets were among the gifts provided’.
MOS SAYS We never reported that the original whistleblower’s affidavit says this. Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland after the original article, we said we had spoken to other contractors who were making allegations of brown envelopes and airline tickets. We subsequently published these details as well as the receipts to back them up. These have now been forwarded to gardaÃ.
REPORT SAYS The MOS, while appearing on Morning Ireland made a ‘broad statement’ that the secret tape was significantly at odds with Martin Nolan’s letter to the Public Accounts Committee and ‘did not provide any specific examples to back this statement up’.
MOS SAYS We gave three specific examples on air: the fact that the whistleblower on tape stood by many of his claims; the fact that he never acknowledged he had lost his contract fairly; and the fact that he did admit making improper payments in the form of gifts and services.
REPORT SAYS The MOS while on radio made the following statement. ‘In return for keeping their contracts, he and other contractors alleged that they felt under pressure to provide things, gifts, free services, free taxi rides… there are mentions of holidays abroad paid for, flights, hotels, those kinds of gifts are alleged to have been provided by Bus Éireann contractors in order for people to keep their contracts.’ The report complained that: ‘This is a very broad statement and there is only one contractor making allegations.’
MOS SAYS We stand by this statement since we had spoken to several contractors making these allegations and subsequently published them – together with documents and receipts to back up the claims.
We never represented these claims on air as being contained in the original affidavit sent to Bus Éireann.
REPORT SAYS The following quote, used in the MOS’s first story, was not ‘a direct quote form the interview transcript’. The quote was: ‘Like I haven’t exaggerated… I would say 98% of it is true and there’s even more that could be alleged.’
MOS SAYS The following quotes are on the secret tape of the whistleblower: ‘Like I haven’t exaggerated, if anything I’ve held back a hell of a lot’ and ‘I would say 98% of it is true and there’s even more that could be alleged.’
REPORT SAYS ‘Bus Éireann believes that this contractor is a vulnerable person whose personal circumstances are being cynically exploited by others… a redacted letter from his father and siblings supports this view.’
MOS SAYS Bus Éireann is relying on a letter from his father and his sister to stand over the assertion that he is vulnerable and being used by others.
In another section of the report, the company reveals that the same sister is a personal friend of, and went on holidays with, one of the Bus Éireann officials alleged to have accepted kickbacks for routes.
