Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá mé thar a bheith buíoch go bhfuil sí tar éis an t-am a thógáil leis an gceist seo a fhreagairt.

I welcome the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Deputy Frances Fitzgerald, and thank her for coming in to take this issue. I raise an issue around the child care facility based in Tiernee, Lettermore, Naíolann na nOileán, which is under the auspices of Muintearas Teo. Muintearas Teo is a full subsidiary of Údarás na Gaeltachta. As I understand it, the three board members are employees of Údarás na Gaeltachta so it is fully under the control of Údarás na Gaeltachta. I understand all its programmes are State funded.

I raise this issue on foot of a report I received from the Minister's office, for which I thank her, which related to an audit conducted by Pobal in respect of the child care facility for the period 1 September 2010 to 31 August 2011. According to the report, in June Pobal visited the service operated by Muintearas to verify that the community child care subvention, CCS, programme was operating in accordance with the terms and conditions. I am informed that the facility had been visited previously in 2010 and at that time and was found to be non-compliant with CCS as it was not adhering to the approved fee policy. The report states that the service was again non-compliant as it was not adhering to the approved fee policy. On foot of that, there was an investigation visit by Pobal in October 2011 to conduct a more thorough investigation of the attendance records. It took a detailed record of the actual attendance at the service. This was compiled in order to ascertain the correct record for children registered and attending regularly. The report found that there were significant differences in the attendance patterns of the children attending the service from the attendance information submitted to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs by the service. That resulted in children attending the facility for significantly less time than had been indicated in the service's submission to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs and that there were significant differences in the numbers of children attending the service from those listed in the parental returns submitted to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs by the service.

Moreover, this resulted in significantly fewer children attending the service than had been indicated in the service's submission. The investigation further concluded that the community childcare subvention, CCS, programme is not being implemented in line with the requirements of the scheme and this resulted in a financial loss to the service. To put it in a nutshell, it is fair to state the report's finding was that children were mentioned on the list who were not attending the actual service itself. Moreover, while an application was made for funding to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs via Pobal, and while €197,466 was approved in funding, after the audit was concluded it was found that the amount the service should have got in reality was €25,193. This left a sum of €124,598 to be repaid. To recap, misleading information was sent to the Department of Children and Youth Affairs or to Pobal, which was administering the funds on behalf of the Department, and on foot of this, €124,000 was received by this organisation that it is now being asked to repay. Three recommendations were made - namely, that the repayment plan of €124,000 be put in place to repay the moneys, that a written undertaking to comply with the terms and conditions of CCS in the future be made and that immediate changes be implemented to its operations to ensure future compliance. This obviously raises a number of serious issues and I wish to ascertain whether these recommendations have been complied with completely. In addition, what, if any, recommendations were made by Pobal or by the Department on whether this issue should have been forwarded to the Director of Public Prosecutions, DPP, or the Garda Síochána? This is based on the seriousness of an organisation receiving €124,598 that, according to Pobal, it should not have received, based on information that apparently was not fully truthful.