‘Serious spending issues’ found at major charities

FLOWERS, restaurants, health insurance, car allowances and large pay packets – these are just some of the things that two of the State’s biggest taxpayer-funded charities have spent their money on.

The Alzheimer Society of Ireland and the Irish Wheelchair Association are both under the spotlight after audits by the HSE revealed spending issues.

An Internal Audit Report found that the IWA, which has 20,000 members, paid for VHI private health insurance for the partners and children of several members of senior management.

This was a practice in place for ten years and not stated in the terms and conditions of their contract, according to the audit.

The report details that IWA staff only took 50% of the Haddington Road Agreement pay cut in 2014 with the remainder ‘to be applied from January 2015’. In the 20122014 audit period, the IWA’s income was €153.8million, with €117.4million coming from the HSE.

Board expenses also came under review with €5,612.25 spent on dinner, hotels and drinks over three December meetings.

The report said the ‘expenditure on nonbusiness related expenditure increases the risk of reputational damage and takes funds away from IWA core activities’.

Another spend cited in the report was a €500 gift voucher for Appleby’s jewellers.

The audit showed that two credit cards had a large number of transactions which ‘were not supported by receipts’. Spending on these included flowers, gifts, gratuities and alcoholic beverages. The IWA has four company cars, 12 executives received car allowances and there were 12 fuel cards for each of those. The auditors said that ‘there is a risk that there are too many car allowances and fuel cards at too high a cost. This could lead to a reduction in services and potential reputational damage’.

A spokesman for the IWA last night said that ‘major work has been undertaken to implement the HSE recommendations’.

An audit into the Alzheimer Society of Ireland found that senior management salaries were in excess of HSE payscales.

Between 2012 and 2015, the ASI received a total of €41.3million in funding from the HSE. The audit found 90 pre-signed, blank cheques with just one signature when two are required citing it as a ‘serious issue’. ASI agreed it ‘was not best practice’. Credit card statements from the former CEO were analysed for 2013 to 2015 with a spend of over €24,000. Out of 206 transactions, 30% of receipts were missing.

A spokesman for the ASI said it ‘fully accept that the findings contained in the audit’s findings fell short of the standards that we would expect’.