By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
CREDIT Union chiefs spent €250,000 sending executives and their wives to lavish conferences in exotic locations such as Las Vegas and Hong Kong.
And the massive foreign travel bill – incurred between 2008 and this year – continues to rise as 10 voluntary board members of the Irish League of Credit Unions and two of its staff prepare for a €50,000 trip to Australia’s Gold Coast next month.
The Irish League of Credit Unions is an umbrella group which represents 500 independent credit unions nationally.
During the years of the lavish foreign travel, credit unions faced a series of challenges, culminating in a Central Bank report last month which criticised many league members for lax lending rules and poor governance.
For example, in June 2010, as six ILCU board members prepared for a €20,000 trip to Las Vegas, the then registrar of credit unions, James O’Brien, told the Central Bank that the sector had ‘significant stresses’ from loan arrears.
The following month, while attending the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU) conference in Las Vegas, executives were photographed letting their hair down.
In the photos then ILCU president Mark Bailey, now manager of Celbridge Credit Union, clutches a half-empty bottle of beer as he and fellow board member Con O’Brien sandwich a Marilyn Monroe impersonator between them, planting kisses on her cheeks.
In other photos from the Las Vegas event, Pat Fay – who is still a ILCU board member – poses before an impressive seafood buffet and former ILCU president Gerry Foley, secretary of Rush Credit Union, is seen dancing energetically in a replica of the infamous Studio 54 nightclub.
Speaking to the MoS, Mr Bailey said the WOCCU events were educational. ‘They were training-type things. They were for a week. There’d be three or four days of a conference and I’d take one or two days at my own cost afterwards.
‘There’s various seminars held on various subjects and you’d pick on the day what’s most appropriate for your function.
‘So whilst they may seem – whatever word you want to put on it – the vast majority of the time there was training-type seminars.’ The other board members photographed in Las Vegas did not respond to messages left at their individual credit unions on Friday but the ILCU confirmed they were present at the event.
Mr Bailey said he had developed relationships at foreign conferences which were useful to him and the credit union movement.
‘Whilst the perception may be somewhat different, the reality was it was a working week and that was it. There was a bit of socialising – we all have a bit of socialising at night – but certainly the days started early at nine o’clock in the morning and went on to half-four or five so seminarwise you were there for the day.’
Asked if there were occasions when his wife’s travel to WOCCU events was paid by the ILCU, Mr Bailey said: ‘There was, with the voluntary basis once a year that’s what was available.
‘Some people would travel on their own and some people would take a spouse or partner, whatever that may be. ‘On occasion I paid for her out of my own funds. There was one or two occasions when I paid for her from my own funds rather than claiming off main funds.’
The Las Vegas trip was preceded in 2009 by a WOCCU conference in Barcelona, which was attended by 12 delegates and five spouses at a cost of €25,000. Separately another 68 Irish delegates from 48 different credit unions attended bringing the Irish delegation in Spain to 80 – the third highest of the 50 countries present.
Among those in Barcelona were six officials from Newbridge Credit Union, taken over by State-owned Permanent TSB last year because of financial difficulties.
In 2008 a dozen current ILCU representatives – including Con O’Brien and Mark Bailey – flew to the Hong Kong conference at a cost of €45,000. The event included numerous social events and tours of the city’s Kowloon Peninsula.
A 2011 conference in Glasgow attended by 19 ILCU executives at a cost of €24,000 took place amid revelations that the Central Bank had placed 100 credit unions under close supervision because of fears about rising loan arrears.
The 2012 event in Gdansk, Poland saw 19 ILCU delegates attend, costing another €24,000. It included an option to play a round of golf at the Sierra Golf Club in Petkowice.
Last year’s conference in Ottowa was attended by 19 ILCU representatives at a cost of €48,000.
Those present included CEO Kieron Brennan and board member Pat Fay. The schedule for this event included options such as lunch in a Native American wigwam, a visit to Niagara Falls as well as a golf classic in an exclusive country club. Aside from the ILCU delegates another 36 from various Irish credit unions attended.
Four months later the Central Bank went to the High Court to pave the way for Newbridge Credit Union to be taken over.
In addition to the annual WOCCU conference, ILCU executives travel to numerous other international meetings – frequently held in locations such as Florida.
ILCU accounts reveal that with these trips and international membership dues included, the cost of its international involvement came to €750,000 between 2008 and 2013.
Last night in a statement the ILCU said executives paid for many social events themselves.
The statement then went on to repeat – word for word – statements already made by the ILCU each year since 2010 each time the cost of foreign trips is raised.
‘We acknowledge these are very difficult times for many of our members and we do not wish to appear insensitive to their circumstances.
We also feel that it is important that we continue to keep in touch with the progress and difficulties faced by the credit union movement internationally, so that we might learn from the opportunities and potential difficulties which lie ahead,’ the statement reads.
It also said that ILCU Board of Directors are not remunerated for their work and are motivated by ‘beliefs not bonuses’ and take holidays from their day-to-day jobs to attend conferences.
Socialist Party TD and member of the banking inquiry Joe Higgins said there was a need for international representation but criticised the number of credit union executives who travelled abroad.
‘An organisation that represents institutions where ordinary working class people save should be even more conscious of costs particularly at a time when their membership are suffering the rigours of austerity,’ he said.
