This story was first published in the Irish Mail on Sunday on 18/03/2012
By: Michael O’Farrell
Investigations Editor
THE Government’s spending watchdog is to investigate the use of invoices by TDs and senators to claim expenses – almost 18 months after the Irish Mail on Sunday revealed two instances of expenses being claimed using bogus receipts.
Despite denials by the Oireachtas that its staff had ever accepted fake invoices as genuine, the use of invoices is to be reviewed by the Comptroller & Auditor General ‘for reassurance regarding the robustness of risk management’.
The move follows two years of campaign-ing by the MoS and its journalists ing by the MoS and its journalists in the wake of an August 2010 exposé, which revealed that while he was a TD, Ivor Callely claimed €3,000 in expenses using forged invoices for mobile phones.
That revelation is the subject of a Garda Fraud Squad investigation, which saw Mr Callely arrested and questioned in January.
A subsequent MoS investigation revealed that former Fianna Fáil TD Ned O’Keeffe had also submitted bogus invoices to claim Dáil expenses. Despite a complaint from a member of the public, however, the Oireachtas has never launched any investigation.
Instead, Clerk of the Dáil Kieran Coughlan allowed Mr O’Keeffe to resubmit new, equally bogus documentation.
The Oireachtas has always insisted there is ‘no question’ of the O’Keeffe expense claim being bogus. However, last week Melissa English, a parliamentary legal adviser with the Oireachtas, wrote in a letter to the MoS that Mr O’Keeffe’s expense claims werenow the focus of a Garda fraud investigation. ‘The Garda Fraud Squad has formally sought and are being provided with copies of records,’ she said.
While insisting the O’Keeffe claim is legitimate and that no bogus invoices had been accepted as genuine, the Oireachtas confirmed that Mr Coughlan had sought an outside review of the system.
The Oireachtas letter said Mr Coughlan had written to the C&AG asking him to review members’ expense transactions involving supplier invoices.
In contrast, gardaà moved to investigate as soon as they were made aware of the matter. An MoS dossier handed to gardaà includes three invoices Mr O’Keeffe submitted to claim €2,237.53 in expenses from the Oireachtas.
The invoices were on headed notepaper apparently from TR Motor Services Ltd – a respected Mercedes dealership in Harold’s Cross, Dublin. A number of irregularities on the three invoices were immediately apparent to the MoS.
The invoices appeared to have been printed on standard headed paper. When the MoS obtained a genuine invoice from TR Motors, it was markedly different to the versions submitted by Mr O’Keeffe, which had no invoice numbers. A TR Motors accounts employee said all its invoices carry such a number. Just one of the invoices bore a VAT number. And all had charged VAT at the incorrect rate of 13.5 per cent, instead of 21 per cent.
One invoice billed €330 in labour charges even though no labour is required to install the component listed. The MoS also established that TR Motors’ accounts did not show the firm having received all of the payments claimed by Mr O’Keeffe, who has always insisted the invoices are genuine.
