GARDAI PROBE SECOND FF TD’S PHONE CLAIMS

This Story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 29/01/2012

By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor

A second former Fianna Fáil minister is under investigation over allegations of mobile-phone expenses fraud, the Irish Mail on Sunday can reveal.

Fraud squad detectives are formally investigating a series of allegedly bogus expense claims submitted by former TD and junior minister Ned O’Keeffe.

The investigation by officers at the Garda Bureau of Fraud Investigation has been running in tandem with the separate probe into the expense claims of Ivor Callely, the former TD, junior minister and senator.

Mr Callely was arrested and released without charge this week and a file was sent to the DPP. The investigation was sparked by MoS revelations in August 2010 that Mr Callely had claimed almost €3,000 in mobile phone expenses using receipts that could not be genuine.

The controversial former minister later accepted that the receipts were bogus but insists he is innocent and that somebody else was responsible for the fakes. If he is charged and convicted, he could face up to 10 years in jail for obtaining money using a ‘false instrument’.

Weeks after the Callely exposé, the MoS revealed that his Fianna Fáil colleague Mr O’Keeffe had also claimed over €2,200 in mobile-phone expenses using receipts that could not be genuine.

However, while Senator Callely’s bogus claims were immediately looked into by the Oireachtas authorities – who then passed the matter on to gardaí and the DPP – Leinster House officials took no action against Mr O’Keeffe.

Despite being made aware of the evidence against Mr O’Keeffe, the Oireachtas authorities – headed by Dáil Clerk Kieran Coughlan – have never investigated. Mr Coughlan himself has repeatedly insisted that the expenses were legitimate and that there was no question of a bogus invoice being submitted or accepted.

Mr Coughlan allowed Mr O’Keeffe to submit fresh paperwork ‘correcting’ the information in one disputed invoice – and has ever since insisted the claim was ‘properly made’.

This stance seems to contradict the view taken by gardaí, who appear to believe the claimed €737 from the Oireachtas former minister has questions to answer. WHICH r Six months after our revelations, Mr O’Keeffe retired when the general election was called in February 2011. DAIL n However, a Garda investigation into Mr O’Keeffe’s expenses was formally launched THE Irish Mail on Sunday today reveals how a high-profile TD has been allowed to make a string of bogus expenses claims – even though the Dáil authorities have been repeatedly told that they are based on fake invoices.Kieran Coughlan, who is Clerk of Dáil, was made aware last year that the Fianna Fáil TD Ned O’Keeffe, who has since retired, had made three bo-gus claims for mobile phone expenses totalling thousands of euro.Mr Coughlan is the most powerful civil servant in the Oireachtas: he responsible for all its staff – and for office which approves TDs’ expenses. However, Mr Coughlan never instigated any probe into Deputy O’Keeffe’s bogus claims – or why staff working for him had paid sums to the Deputy on the basis of fake invoices.Eventually, a concerned member ed ft in September 2011 after our evidence was handed over to GBFI detectives.

The dossier includes three invoices that Mr O’Keeffe submitted to claim €2,237.53 in expenses from the Oireachtas.

The invoices were all on headed note paper apparently from TR Motor Services Ltd – a respected Mercedes dealership in Harold’s Cross, south Dublin.

Mr O’Keeffe’s invoices were not questioned by the Dáil authorities and he was paid the full amount on the invoices.

But as soon as the MoS saw the three receipts, a number of irregularities were immediately apparent.

One issue was that the invoices appeared to have been printed on standard headed paper. When the MoS obtained a genuine invoice from TR Motor S i it k dl Services, it was markedly different to the amateurish versions submitted by Mr O’Keeffe.

The documents provided to the Oireachtas by Mr O’Keeffe also had no invoice numbers: a TR Motors accounts employee insisted that all the firm’s invoices carry such a number.

In addition, just one of the invoices bore a VAT number – another standard feature of any legitimate sales docket.

Moreover, all of the invoices had charged VAT at the incorrect rate of 13.5%. The Revenue confirmed to the MoS that the correct VAT rate for installing mobile phone kits at the time was 21%.

But possibly the most glaring aspect of the invoices was the amount involved, which seemed impossibly high for the goods and services listed.

For example, one of the invoices bills €330 in labour charges even though no labour is required to install the component listed.

Crucially, the MoS also established that TR Motors’ own accounts did not show the firm having received all of the payments claimed by Mr O’Keeffe.

Mr O’Keeffe has always insisted the invoices are genuine and that he got them ‘free and fair’.