The Irish health and safety regulator has had to defend the profligacy of its senior executives during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years, after a newspaper received details of credit-card spending via a freedom of information request.
The Irish Examiner revealed yesterday (3 September) that an internal audit by the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) concluded that despite lavish spending by employees during the boom years, the taxpayer-funded agency “did not abuse credit cards”.
Auditors Crowleys DFK Chartered Accountants emphasised that the total of €625,668 (£495,623) racked up by the Authority on credit cards between June 2005 and June 2011 accounted for just 1 per cent of its non-pay expenditure.
The audit was provided for the Public Accounts Committee after it convened a meeting earlier this year on the HSA’s credit-card expenditure.
However, details obtained by the Irish Examiner under a freedom of information request reveal, among other things, that: a senior executive spent €2200 on a stay at a luxurious hotel in Santa Monica in the US in September 2005; in the same month, €1500 was spent on another credit card at a Disney resort in Florida; and a stay at a hotel in The Hague in December cost €2544.
In addition, during the period audited, the HSA spent up to €376,000 on flights – a total that Crowleys DFK described as “reasonable”, and considered that just three flights – to New York and Toronto, totalling €8284 – could be “deemed excessive”.
A spokesperson for the regulator told the Irish Examiner that the expenses relating to the Disney resort in September 2005 were incurred during attendance at the World Safety Conference held in Orlando that year.
The spokesperson also emphasised that “since 2008, expenditure in this general area has seen substantial decline. In 2010, credit-card expenditure was almost half the 2008 level. Since 2009, the HSA has had a vouched expenses policy based on value for money.”
The Health and Safety Executive in the UK publishes details of the expenses incurred by its Board and senior management team on its website, going back to April-Jun 2009. According to this information, between January 2010 and December 2011 the HSE’s chair, chief executive, deputy chief executive and nine other Board members submitted expenses totalling £179,520 (the overall total when the 14 members of the senior management team are also taken into account was £519,612).
The Board of the Irish Health and Safety Authority comprises 12 members, and the regulator employs a chief executive and four assistants. The Authority did not reply to a request from SHP to confirm how many of its senior executives are HSA credit-card holders.
