More was spent on government office supplies last year than pursuing white-collar crime

THE AMOUNT SPENT last year by the agency responsible for pursuing white-collar criminals was less than half the Oireachtas office supplies budget.

According to the the houses of the Oireachtas annual report, the total budget for the Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement (ODCE) during 2015 was €5.1 million.

That figure was up slightly on the €4.7 million it was granted in 2014 but down marginally on the €5.3 million in 2013.

In comparison, €8.4 million was spent on office supplies by the parliament last year, up from €7.2 million during 2014 and higher than the estimated spend of €7.1 million. The bulk of the spend was on ICT maintenance and support.

A spokesman for the Oireachtas said that several large projects accounted for the overspend on office supplies and ICT during 2015.

The ODCE is the agency responsible for making sure that business people are following company law. It has handled several high profile cases of alleged corporate wrongdoing and was recently involved in the case of scandal-hit charity Console.

The agency also carried out a long-running investigation into business practices at the former Anglo Irish Bank.

Vacancies

Of the agency’s €5.1 million budget last year, only €3.1 million was actually spent. It said that this was because, as vacancies arose during the course of the year – “principally retirements and transfers out” – there was a “delay in receipt of approvals necessary to proceed with recruitment”.

The vacancies accounted for a large part of the spending gap, although the body also had €2.2 million allocated for ‘non-pay costs’ – less than €1 million of which was eventually needed.

The funding set aside included a large provision for legal costs that the OCDE thought it would have to pay during a trial it was taking part in.

In the end, the ODCE spent €916,000 on ‘non-pay costs’ during the year. As of the end of 2015 the body had the equivalent of 37 full time staff, down from 40 the year before.

A spokesman for the agency told Fora that, since the start of the year, the organisation has taken on three new staff, will shortly hire two more and has plans for further recruitment.

The ODCE conducted an investigation into Anglo Irish Bank

“We did a workforce evaluation that found a need for forensic accounting and ICT skills (and) we were granted a budget,” he said.

“It would have been nice to get people in as soon as possible, (but) we had to go through the public recruitment process and there were probably a lots of delays because of the huge amount of recruitment going on there now.”

More serious crimes

However aside from the new hires, the ODCE spokesman said the agency wasn’t looking for additional resources.

“We have a number of cases under investigation and if we believed that we needed extra resources we would seek them,” he said.

The ODCE said that in its report that it has recently shifted its focus to pursuing more serious crimes which are likely to be tried on indictment.

“This shift continued during 2015 and, in addition to referring one file to the DPP during the year, at year end, one case was before the courts and the office had 18 individuals and companies under investigation with a view to the possible referral of matters to the DPP for consideration,” it said.