Alan Farrell (Dublin Fingal, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One specific incident is very glaring. It is probably quite small money, but it is very troubling given that An Garda Síochána did it. The Garda Vote provides for Templemore a sum of money, as I understand it, for laundry services and-or supplementary food in the canteen or the mess, whatever they refer to it as. For a period of time the college in Templemore was charging for the laundry service which led to large sums of money being accrued, which in turn led to money being transferred all over the place up to and including investment accounts and all the rest of it.

One of the troubling aspects of all of that, apart from it being unacceptable either from an accounting perspective or from a moral one, is that the moneys that were then transferred to the sports field then ended up being transferred in the amount of €100,000 to the Garda Boat Club. As stated in the interim report, the Garda Boat Club is a private organisation. The report was very specific about who is in it. It states that it is run by current and former staff and their families. I have no problem with that. I looked it up online and see it was established in 1954. The website lists the committee, captains and all the rest of it. It is a fairly open and transparent organisation from its public perspective.

However, €100,000 was sent to a private institution and those who run it are not auditable or answerable to the Commissioner or anybody else for that matter. The biggest issue I have with that is that those are public funds in a private organisation. There is a term for that and it begins with an "e". I looked up the definition of that.