SIPTU is to seek a meeting with the Health Service Executive in relation to a controversial account from which funds were spent on foreign trips for union and Government officials.
The union has postponed a meeting of its National Executive Council scheduled for 9 February in order to allow for clarification of an investigation by Grant Thornton Accountants into the account.
The controversy came to light last summer when a HSE Internal Audit discovered that almost €2.5m had been channelled via the HSE from a €60m training programme for lower skilled health workers into an account called the SIPTU National Health and Local Authority Levy fund.
The audit found that 31 trips to destinations, including Australia and New York, were funded from the account.
SIPTU has consistently said it knew nothing about the account.
The signatories on the account were SIPTU Health Division Organiser Matt Merrigan and SIPTU Health Division Shop Steward Jack Kelly.
Mr Merrigan and Mr Kelly commissioned an audit of the account by Grant Thornton accountants.
The Grant Thornton report has now been passed to trustees of SIPTU, who are carrying out a separate investigation for the union.
Sources say the trustees have a number of questions about the account, particularly in relation to a sum of €348,000 - and will seek a meeting with the HSE in order to clarify a number of matters.
It is understood the union trustees also want to meet the Local Authority National Partnership action Group, which paid a further €925,000 into the same account for partnership activities.
It had been hoped that the SIPTU investigation would be concluded by 9 February, so that the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee could hold a further hearing into the matter on 15 February.
However, the calling of the General Election has removed the pressure of that deadline, and the SIPTU National Executive Committee meeting on 9 February has been postponed.
