The high-profile upturned umbrellas designed to weatherproof Meeting House Square in Dublin’s Temple Bar came in at more than 30 per cent above budget, according to an official audit report which has identified serious failings in the project’s procurement procedures.
The report by Dublin City Council’s internal audit unit into the management of Temple Bar Cultural Trust also found a large volume of financial information was deleted from the trust’s computer system. The unit describes this as a “significant event”.
The deletion resulted in three months of entries in 2012 and some year-end 2011 entries being lost. Because there was no back-up, they were only partially retrieved; for example, 28 line items were re-entered as one figure totalling €121,781.The report also finds minutes of trust board meetings were “fabricated” and proper procurement procedures were not followed in delivering the €2.7 million “rainscreen” designed to make Meeting House Square an all-weather venue. Fáilte Ireland, which provided €1.54 million in funding subject to compliance with EU and national procurement procedures, was advised by consultants Davis Langton that the project had gone ahead “contrary to” Department of Finance guidelines, according to the report.
The audit report, which has been seen by The Irish Times, noted that the rainscreen was originally budgeted at €2 million, but ended up costing €2.7 million. The trust even considered selling two apartments from its portfolio to make up the funding shortfall.
An earlier report, published in March 2013, found serious failures of corporate governance in the trust, which is the successor to Temple Bar Properties, the State-owned company set up in 1991. Former chief executive Dermot McLaughlin, who had been suspended on full pay pending an investigation of his role in the governance failures, negotiated a still-undisclosed severance package with the trust and left office on December 31st last.
The latest report deals with the Meeting House Square rainscreen project and specifically queries how Seán Harrington Architects (SHA), which had carried out the initial feasibility study, ended up being appointed as architects and project managers.
“It is unclear how this appointment progressed to SHA being engaged as project manager/architect,” according to the report, which says the trust had not been able to show a “competitive procurement process for this appointment took place”.
SHA was paid a total of €204,160 for its services, including the right to use the square for 10 events “in lieu of cash payment”, which was valued at €35,000. There is no explanation in the report why such an unconventional payment method was used.
Dealing with bridging finance, it says a certified extract of board minutes “was fabricated and provided to Ulster Bank to support creating a charge over two TBCT properties with a combined value of €3 million”– the Urbana and Sycamore buildings.
After noting that neither main contractor Weslin Ltd nor rainscreen supplier MDT Tex were appointed in line with public procurement policy, the audit gives an “unsatisfactory” rating to the project, saying the “violations represent unacceptable exposure and risk”.
It recommends immediate action to correct “major control weakness” in the trust which is in the process of being wound down. The trust’s current chief executive, Brendan Kenny, who is also an assistant chief executive at Dublin City Council, has acknowledged the “seriousness of the findings”.
However trust director Independent councillor Mannix Flynn called for an “independent investigation into all of this” because he believed council management was trying to “sweep things under the carpet” by failing to address legacy issues associated with the trust.
Top salary earner: Una Carmody
Una Carmody, the most highly paid executive in Temple Bar Cultural Trust, receives an annual salary of €97,000 to run an arts audience research project that aims “to foreground audiences in our thinking as an essential part of the arts landscape”.
Appointed arts audience manager in January 2009, Ms Carmody’s salary and that of a part-time assistant are paid by the Arts Council, although the trust agreed to act as her “host and employing agent” for the €200,000-a-year programme.
This effectively made her a permanent employee of the trust, according to Dublin City Council assistant chief executive Brendan Kenny, who currently heads the trust, and said this issue “needs to be addressed in the context of the eminent [sic] cessation of the trust”.
In a report to the council, Mr Kenny said he had “discussed the whole issue with staff from the Arts Council recently and further meetings are planned in the coming weeks”. He had also met Ms Carmody to discuss her employment .
The trust once employed 18 staff but following resignations and redundancies, numbers have been reduced to just six, including Ms Carmody and her assistant, who is paid €24,000 a year.
