Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Fine Gael)

I am pleased to have an opportunity to raise this very serious and important matter in regard to the expenditure of public moneys. The Minister of State will be aware that the Dublin Inner City Partnership was established in 1991, one of 12 development companies under the programme for economic and social progress at the time. The aim of this partnership was to fund community groups and to fund projects in disadvantaged areas, including those most affected by abject poverty in the State.

Significant funding of millions of euro was made available and administered by the Dublin Inner City Partnership over an extended period. Pobal administered the funds to the Dublin Inner City Partnership through a local development social inclusion programme under the ambit of the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs, through the millennium partnership fund under the Department of Education and Science, and through the immigration and integration fund under the auspices of the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform. Effectively, a middleman was created between the Government funding the schemes and the communities to which these funds were to be channelled for their benefit.

What is a matter of grave concern to me and to my constituents, many of whom have been involved in the community and voluntary sector over an extended period, is that initially no reports were conducted into how these moneys were being administered until an audit was conducted in March 2008. It seemed clear from the subsequent events that questions were raised by this audit and, therefore, another audit was conducted in December 2009. What is bizarre about these audits is that they have not been published and have not been made available either to public representatives or to the communities which were to receive the funds. The audits have been made completely secret by Pobal, which is extraordinary and, in my view, unacceptable.

This degree of secrecy does not instil confidence. What I have read in the media and what has been claimed by various national newspapers is that the second report discovered that senior management in the Dublin Inner City Partnership were paying themselves significant amounts above and beyond what was approved by Pobal. One manager in the partnership is alleged to have received over €10,000 more than was approved by Pobal, the financial administrator over €5,000 more and the regeneration officer over €5,000 more. Subsequent to these details becoming public, one Dublin city councillor resigned from the board but, unfortunately, two other councillors did not. What is interesting is that one political party, Sinn Féin, has come out and condemned the decision by Pobal to completely withdraw funding from the Dublin Inner City Partnership from the end of this month. That condemnation is somewhat extraordinary as I believe the withdrawal of funding was the correct course of action.

I would like to highlight a number of issues. The first is the lack of accountability. These are public moneys - taxpayers' money - which have been spent and administered in a very questionable fashion with no accountability. I call on the Government to ensure that the audits of the Dublin Inner City Partnership which were conducted by Pobal will be made available, which is only right in the interests of transparency. It strikes me as more than bizarre given that, following the type of squandering of public moneys we have seen in other organisations such as FÁS and other Government quangos, there has been some degree of accountability in recent times. Due to a media and political furore, some opening up and transparency has ultimately been seen in these bodies but there has been none in regard to Pobal and the Dublin Inner City Partnership.

It is essential that a number of developments happen for the future. First, we must ensure the funds continue to be made available to these groups and that this is not used as an excuse to stop funding very valuable and important community groups. Second, we must ensure any new body which replaces the Dublin Inner City Partnership is an exercise in genuine local democracy and genuine community involvement rather than having the same old individuals popping into positions of authority in regard to the administration of these funds. I genuinely do not believe this will be acceptable to the communities involved.

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