Local Authority: Kerry County Council
Issue: Breach of grant claim procedures
The Local Government Auditor criticised Kerry County Council over two successive years for wrongly claiming grant funding from the Department of Agriculture for building works that had not started or been completed.
The auditor said that the council had breached grant claim procedures.
In both cases, the council submitted certificates of completion stating that the projects were finished, to draw down funding through the Fishery, Harbour and Coastal Infrastructure Development Programme, which the department administers.
The programme stipulates that funding covers actual expenditure only. In the first case, in 2017, work had only just begun on the project when the council applied for payment from the department. In the second, which took place the following year, work had not started.
In April and May 2017, the council obtained approval for a project involving repair work at a harbour in Fenit, a Kerry coastal village, at a total cost of €110,000, of which 75% – €82,500 – would be funded by the department.
The deadline for the final claim for payment was 17 November. On 16 November, the council applied for payment of the grant and submitted various documentation, including certificates of completion stating that works had been completed. Funding of €82,500 was then released to the council.
But the works were nowhere near complete.
A council official later explained to the Local Government Auditor that work on the harbour had only begun "in earnest" on 31 October and was delayed because of difficulties the contractor had in sourcing necessary materials. Ultimately, the project was not completed until the end of April 2018.
The council's chief executive told the Local Government Auditor that this was an "isolated case," according to the 2017 audit of the council.
But an almost identical issue occurred in 2018, involving a grant claim for repair work at a pier in Dromatoor, Ballyheigue.
In early November that year, the council paid the project’s contractor €21,000, and on 16 November – the deadline for the final claim for payment – it applied for payment of €15,000 from the department. It also provided a certificate of completion stating that the project had been completed and provided a "full expenditure listing to support the claim."
During an inspection the following month, the department discovered that work had not started on the pier. It wrote to the council to say that funding was being withheld, asking why the "project was certified as complete when works had yet to commence.
The council replied that while some preliminary work had begun in early November 2018, a change in tidal and weather conditions meant that the work couldn’t be completed. It said that this hadn’t been communicated to the council staff involved in processing the grant application, adding that the contractor had refunded the payment made for the works to the council.
Separately, the council told the Local Government Auditor that "disciplinary action was taken, having regard to the failings in corporate governance."
In a memo from the Local Government Auditor written in 2019, obtained by RTÉ Investigates through freedom of information, the auditor stated, "I was informed that the shortcomings noted in 2017 would not reoccur… The serious breach of internal control procedures on this matter was as inexplicable as it was inexcusable."
Kerry County Council told RTÉ Investigates: "In relation to the two breaches identified, these were brought by management to the attention of the Local Government Auditor and have been addressed in the Audit reports. Whilst there was no financial loss to the Council or the State, Council Management considered this a serious breach in procedures."
